


Smile.

by riverdaze



Series: Disaster Lesbians [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Autistic Ushijima Wakatoshi, Bullying, Developing Relationship, F/F, Gender Roles, Gender and Autism expression, Gender or Sex Swap, HSP Tendo, Highly sensitive person (HSP), Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Lesbophobia, More tags about that last one probably relevant, Self-Discovery, Sexuality, i have discovered a true love for the pairing while writing this, i have seen the UshiTen light
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-01-05 23:02:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21216497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverdaze/pseuds/riverdaze
Summary: "Do you want me to teach you?"“What?”“If you want, I can teach you to play volleyball. You're so tall, I can't believe you've never tried!”





	1. CHOICE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _TW: none_  
I hope any ooc-ness comes off as intentional.

“Soooo, what’s with that fake little smile, darling?”

Ushijima’s pleasant expression did not shift as she turned to the speaker. A lanky redhead with lightbulb eyes blinked back at her from the curb. Her athletics club jacket and the gym bag slung over her shoulder indicated she was leaving a practice of some sort. Ushijima herself had stayed late with her own club.

“Fake?” Ushijima asked. The open quality of her resting expression stood verified from a variety of sources. She would know if it looked unpleasant. 

The redhead stood tall but still shorter than Ushijima. She would, therefore, be a poor person to keep proximity with. Her spindle frame made her look taller than she was. If she stood next to her, Ushijima would appear even taller by comparison. Ushijima already stood too tall.

“Your smile. It looks like something crawled up your skirt and died,” the girl said, tone upbeat. She patted Ushijima on the shoulder blade and Ushijima did not flinch. Flinching was both strange and rude.

“My skirt is in pristine condition,” she said instead. It was ironed every night before school.

The redhead laughed, so loud and disruptive Ushijima almost frowned. But she didn’t. Frowning was unattractive. 

“That’s funny! I didn’t peg you for a jokester since you were trying so hard to smile! I’m Tendo Sa-tor-i--” She pronounced her given name with three distinct syllables, holding up a finger for each-- “a third year, class two. You?”

“Ushijima Wakoto. Third year. Class three.”

“Wow! Funny we’ve never run into each other, Ushijima-chan! I guess we just run in different circles. Can I call you Wako-chan?”

“Yes,”

“Cool. So, seriously, though, Wako-chan, are you okay?”

Not many things frustrated Ushijima. But…

“Why would I not be?”

“Because for some reason you’re standing on a curb fake smiling… that sounded less suggestive in my head,” she laughed, bouncing her eyebrows and bumping her shoulder against Ushijima’s. “Oh, sorry,” she said when Ushijima stumbled to the side. Tendo may have been shorter and lanky looking, but she carried the literal weight of her athleticism behind her. Ushijima’s physical activity began and ended with school mandated physical fitness. “So... why are you doing that?” Tendo asked.

“I'm waiting for my driver,”

“Oooh! Wakojousama! But no no, forget the curb part.” Tendo waved away Ushijima’s answer. “I mean why are you smiling at nothing if you don’t mean it?”

“Do I need a reason to smile?” She resisted the urge to furrow her brow; her mother didn’t like it when she did that. 

“Nooooo, but you clearly don’t wanna be smiling, sooooo…” Tendo rocked back and forth, hands behind her back. Ushijima continued to watch the road. Based on past social experience, Ushijima deduced Tendo was waiting for something more from her. Ushijima didn’t know what, though. She had answered all of Tendo’s questions. What could she add? It was important to fit in, to not seem abnormal, to not make social faux pauses. Would it be worse to answer incorrectly or not to answer at all?

Tendo huffed out a breath.

“All I’m tryin’ ta say is you look kinda upset and you don’t hafta hide it. If you’re trying to cheer yourself up, go for it, and I’m offering an ear to listen to your problems. But if you’re doing it for someone else…--” She spread her arms and twirled, gesturing to the empty street. Facing away from Ushijima, Tendo contorted her head backwards to speak to Ushijima upside-down. -- “then I hate to break it ta ya, but they’re not getting the message.” She unraveled herself and turned to face Ushijima normally.

“You’re very flexible,” Ushijima said. Tendo blinked at her and laughed. 

“I’m available every night.” She winked and pressed one of her long fingers against her cheek.

“... okay.” Ushijima nodded at her and Tendo laughed again. She went to pat Ushijima on the back, but paused and put her hand down. Ushijima did not let her relief show. 

An engine interrupted the silence, purring up to the school gates. Ushijima stepped off the curb to enter the vehicle. 

“This your ride?” Tendo asked, for some reason. Of course it was. Ushijima did not answer as she opened the door and put one foot in. Before ducking inside, though, she turned to Tendo. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought Tendo’s objective had been to comfort her from imagined ills. 

“It was a pleasure to have made your acquaintance, Tendo.” Ushijima inclined her head and finished entering the vehicle.

“What am I, your coworker? But nice ta meetcha, too!” She heard as she closed the door behind her.

...:::*:::...

“Wako-chan!” Ushijima turned as she stepped out of her classroom, coming face to face with the girl she had met at the gate last week. She surprised herself when she remembered her name: Tendo Satori. Retaining the details of casual acquaintances generally proved somewhat difficult to Ushijima. What made Tendo different?

“Hello,” she said as Tendo, lifting her bento, jogged up to her from the class next door.

“Hey! Are you eating lunch anywhere special?”

“No.” 

Tendo stared at her. While Ushijima waited for the conversation to continue, she noted the fit of Tendo’s uniform. Tendo and Ushijima had run into the same problem of the uniform skirts not being created with girls of their height in mind. Skinny Tendo faced an even more extreme version since her slim hips required a smaller skirt size than Ushijima’s broader frame. However, whereas Ushijima wore tights underneath to avoid being perceived as promiscuous, Tendo seemed to have no such reservations. Her long legs bared themselves to the world, thighs strong and dotted by sunspots and freckles.

Tendo huffed and slumped forward, drawing Ushijima's eyes back to her face. Her long arms dangled past her knees, and Ushijima had the thought that it wouldn’t have been bad to be standing behind her at that moment.

“I’m asking if you wanna have lunch with me, Wako-chan!”

“Oh.” She reviewed the conversation and recognized where she had missed her cue. No matter how many times it happened, implied questions always managed to slip by her. “Alright,”

“Really?!”

“Yes.”

People asked her to lunch often enough. They told her they appreciated her predilection for silence and willingness to listen to anything. For her own sake, however, she found most interaction uncompelling. Additionally, the conversations she found herself involved in sometimes felt to be at the expense of other students. She could never be sure, though, which only heightened her dissatisfaction with such a situation. All in all, the practice often made Ushijima feel tired and unsure. But being sociable was important. Being unavailable was unattractive. 

Tendo led her out towards the clearing where students gathered to eat on sunny days. She folded her long body onto the grass and waited for Ushijima to do the same before speaking. 

“So, Wako-chan, you’re still doing the smile.”

“Smiling is important.” She unwrapped her lunch. Maybe Tendo would understand if Ushijima explained it the same way her mother explained it to her. “Not smiling gives the impression of sadness or duress, and others find these social signals unpleasant,” 

Tendo popped something from her lunch into her mouth, munching on it with exaggerated jaw motions.

“You being in ‘duress’ might be offensive to strangers? Is that what you’re telling me?”

Ushijima's eyes fell to her meal.

“Not offensive. Simply unpleasant,”

“And it’s your job to be pleasant?”

Ushijima considered the question as she separated her chopsticks, arranging them in her right hand one at a time.

“I do not know how to be any more precise,” she admitted.

“Okay, okay, but what if you’re upset about something?”

“It would be impolite to make my feelings anybody else's concern. Though that is irrelevant because I was not... upset,”

“Hmmm, say I believe ya. Still doesn’t explain why’d ya do it when nobody's around,”

Ushijima nibbled at her food and felt the phantom sting of a switch hitting her shoulders.

“... Habit.”

Tendo hummed.

...:::*:::...

“What sport do you play, Tendo?” Ushijima asked as they ate. One month into their acquaintance and Ushijima found herself curious. She hadn't seen Tendo in her athletic gear since the first time they met, but she still remembered the look.

The two of them ate together twice a week now. Ushijima thought she might enjoy Tendo’s company more than that of her other acquaintances. Tendo spoke a lot, true, but she didn’t expect Ushijima to keep up. She didn't get offended when Ushijima lost track of the conversation. Tendo seemed to have caught on to the fact that Ushijima didn’t always… understand. And though, to some extent, being uncovered upset Ushijima, she couldn’t help but appreciate not only Tendo’s willingness to repeat or rephrase herself but also that when Tendo laughed she included Ushijima in the joke. 

“I thought you’d never ask! At first, I thought you must know since you didn’t say nothing, but then I realized you just didn’t care! That kinda hurt, ya know!”

“I apologize,”

“No no, it’s fine. I was joking. I’m a little sad you haven’t seen us, but I’m used to it. We’re always eclipsed by the boy’s team even though we’re totally better. I play volleyball!”

Volleyball.

“My father played volleyball,” Ushijima said. “Professionally,”

“Really!?”

“Yes. But he retired before I was born,”

“And you don’t play? At all?”

Ushijima had vague memories of her father, outside of their phone calls. She remembered the old volleyball he once kept in the house. She remembered Grandmother scolding her for throwing it. Polite little girls did not play promiscuous sports, particularly one like volleyball. Grandmother declared it populated by whores in bikinis. Father didn’t appreciate that evaluation, but he didn’t encourage Ushijima to play, either. It would be easier for everyone if she did what Grandmother wanted, he said. Grandmother was stern, but knew what was best for her, he said.

Something unpleasant curled up in Ushijima’s stomach, something she'd never felt before she started conversing with Tendo but now found herself almost familiar with.

“No. I don’t,”

“Do you wanna learn?”

“What?” Surprise caused the word to spill out of Ushijima’s mouth regardless of how crass and impolite it sounded. The unfamiliar feelings bubbling up inside her left her off-kilter. How she felt about Tendo’s ability to do that… she didn’t know. She didn’t always find it unpleasant. 

“If you want, I can teach you to play volleyball. Your body's perfect! It’d suck for you to not at least know,”

“My… body?” Her body, perfect? She stood too tall and her shoulders cultivated an unfeminine broadness and her figure presented more rectangle than hourglass and her breasts measured average at best and her monolids... No one could ever describe it as... How could Tendo, skinny and narrow and wide-eyed _cute_ Tendo, think _Ushijima's_ body could be...

“Yup! You’re so tall! So whaddya say?”

Ushijima shook herself out of her flight of fancy. Her body happened to be well suited for achieving a single objective. That was all Tendo meant.

“I would… like… that,” she found herself saying. What would her father think?

...:::*:::...

They held their lessons during lunch hours. Ushijima didn't go out on weekends or after school unless accompanied by someone her family approved of. Her family would not approve of Tendo.

“That’s the stuff!” Tendo praised as Ushijima returned the ball.

“It’s only passing.” An old fractured memory cropped up as they played: her father, tossing to her like this only once. When no one was looking. He spoke, then, though Ushijima couldn’t remember what about, exactly. Something about someone he admired. She did remember one thing he said:

_“It makes me sad you’ll never play. But I guess that’s your choice.”_

Her… choice. What choice?

“You’re selling yourself short! Believe me, it’s hard to get the hang of this.” Tendo grabbed the ball out of the air next time it came towards her. “Wanna sneak into the gym and try some serves? I’m pretty sure the net is still up.”

“Is that permitted?”

“Nope,”

“... Alright,”

...:::*:::...

“Wow! You really are a natural!”

“I did not make half as many as you, and you only play middle blocker,”

“Hey, what’s that 'posed to mean? I still practice my serves and stuff! What I do is practice, what you did was talent! You wanna try a spike?” 

“I don't know how,”

“Ah, just try it! I’ll set the ball to you nice and slow! Run up from the line and try to hit it,”

“...Alright.”

Ushijima walked to the back of the court. She turned to stare at the net, taking a deep breath before sprinting forward. Running for her own sake rather than in a class… how novel.

The solid thumps of her gym shoes hitting the ground mimicked the echo of her heart hopping in her chest. Her hair whipped around behind her and she knew once she jumped it would rush into her face. It would be a mess by the time the two of them finished. She didn’t think she cared, because for a moment everything lined up. The ball left Tendo's fingers and Ushijima knew without being told when she needed to jump and in what direction she needed to reach…

The ball sailed at least twenty centimeters above her hand, which crested the top of the net by less than that. The net caught her knee-jarring landing, bouncing her back with her vision obstructed by her hair.

“Oh,” Tendo said, staring with her hands still half-suspended. She tilted her head. “Maybe… I should've thrown that lower... but is that really the highest you can jump?”

Something churned in Ushijima’s chest. Her face heated; odd for a cool autumn day. Did she overexert herself?

“Yes.” She brushed her hair back and looked up at the crest of the net. If she extended her arm above her head, she should be able to grab it. For a moment… for a moment she wondered if Tendo’s opinion on her had changed. She looked away and gathered her hair as footsteps approached. 

The world tilted, though Ushijima managed to refrain from shouting. Tendo, now kneeling in front of her, had fished one of Ushijima’s legs off the ground onto her knee. While holding Tendo’s shoulders for balance, Ushijima wondered if the unnatural heat in the gym involved climate change.

“Oh, I see. You’re scrawny!” Tendo said as she examined Ushijima’s thighs and shins. Ushijima, taking advantage of Tendo’s attention concentrated on her leg instead of her face, frowned. 

“I am not,”

“You are!” Tendo looked up and Ushijima reverted to her smile, though the assessment continued to bother her.

She did not think she saw herself through an unrealistic lens. Ushijima knew she held a desirable attractiveness in her sharp face despite her height. She knew she possessed right bellow average intelligence redeemed by her rigorous study skills. She also knew she was not, by any means, scrawny. The careful diet she followed to fit into the size medium skirts attested to that. Grandmother near threw a fit when the school recommended the large.

“I guess you’re a little too skinny for spiking, but that’s because you joined a knitting club!”

“Knitting is a desirable skill,”

“No, of course, knitting’s great and practical and all, I’m thinking of learning, actually, but… do you even like it? I mean, desirable to who?” Tendo dropped Ushijima’s leg and made to stand up. Only once she had done so did Ushijima realize her hands continued to rest on Tendo’s shoulders.

She didn’t speak as she removed them, giving in to the strange inclination to brush her thumbs over Tendo’s prominent collar bones. Instead of examining that, she considered Tendo’s question. She didn’t… dislike… knitting. Necessarily. 

“It is a skill that a good wife should have,”

“Lol, what?”

“... ‘Lol’? I do not--”

“Forget that part. I’m talking about the part where you walked a phrase out of the cult of domesticity.” Tendo played out a small skit where two of her fingers ‘walked’ across the palm of her opposite hand. 

“I am simply acknowledging the desirability of the skill to others,”

“To guys, you’re saying, right?”

“The ability to knit is an attractive quality that will serve me well in a domestic capacity,” she continued with more force than she perhaps intended.

“So that’s why you’re in the knitting club, for a guy you haven’t met yet?” Tendo sprawled herself over the bench at the side of the court, legs spread despite her skirt. Ushijima focused on her face as she followed, taking a seat at the edge and smoothing down her own uniform. 

“It is an investment in my future prospects and proof of a useful skillset,” she said, pulling her hair over one shoulder where it draped down past her waist.

“You’re thinking a little far ahead, doncha think?” Tendo reached out and gave a playful tug to a lock of Ushijima’s hair. 

“What benefit is there in ignoring inevitabilities, regardless of how distant?” 

“Inevitabilities?” Tendo squawked, rocketing back, “Speak for yourself, darling! If someone wants to marry _this_\--” she gestured down across her entire body, long arms almost hypnotizing with the unfurling movement, “they’re gonna have a hard time of it, I’ll tell ya that!”

“A… ‘hard time’?”

“Yup, because I’ll go kickin’ and screamin’ every step of the way,”

“What if it is someone you wish to marry?”

“Ha, then we'll have a hard time of it together, considering _that_ would be illegal,” she drew out each of the last word’s three syllables, eyes darting to Ushijima before looking away. Ushijima tilted her head, an acceptable non-aging replacement for furrowing her brow. 

“We're eighteen.” 

Tendo laughed, slapping her knee. Her other hand bunched up the meager material of her skirt. 

“You’re a real prize, Wako-chan. That’s not what I meant. But don’t worry about it. We need to get back to the point, and that’s that you really feel you need to be able to cook and clean and knit for your mystery husband,”

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“...Well, don’t you think you should learn things _you_ want to learn instead of things you think someone else might want you to maybe learn? But I guess if that’s what you want, it’s your choice.” Tendo leaned towards her, head cocked and gaze resolute, curious. Ushijima met it without flinching despite the chaos in her head, trying to organize her answer.

There went that word again: choice. Her choice. 

To Ushijima's relief, Tendo stood up and began to gather their stuff, indicating the question had been rhetorical. Still, as Ushijima took her bag and they left the gym, she considered Tendo's diction.

If she did nothing, if she allowed her life to play out the way it was ushered, if she was told one thing over and over and was not presented or disposed to consider the merit of any other options, was that… choice?

...:::*:::...

“... and I am sure you’ve gained weight! We need to schedule an appointment with your physician. We cannot have you getting fat so close to your twenties!”

“Yes, Grandmother,”

“Men do not like slovenly women who can’t even keep their weight in check. You’re near marrying age, remember,”

“Mother, settle down. She’s only eighteen.” Mother’s voice stayed level as always, but her words sounded decisive.

“Yes yes, but it’s never too early, you know,”

“That’s the advice I took, and look where it got me.” Grandmother scowled as Mother took a serene bite of her meal. “I will be content if she marries before thirty-five. She should cultivate her emotional maturity,”

“Ridiculous. Wakoto is as mature as a woman twice her age, I always said that, and any man would think so. She won’t make your mistakes, I’m sure. She knows to listen to her elders.” Grandmother insisted. “Before thirty-five, what nonsense,” she scoffed. “You know, I saw it on the news, these young women with their self-victimization and fanciful ideas about how to spend their twenties… That is an age for raising children. Imagine, being forty with a toddler running around? Ridiculous,”

“Nobody said anything about forty. I would hope her settled before then. But at her age, there is no rush,”

“See, attitudes like that is how we end up with bitter old maids and a population problem. I worry for the future of Japan, darling. If she doesn’t have prospects by twenty-five, we send her for an omiai. That is the most I am willing to compromise on the matter.”

“I didn’t realize this was an official discussion,” Mother answered, “But of course, of course.” She smiled at Ushijima. “Wakoto is a beautiful young woman. She will have no trouble, I’m sure.”

“Hmh, what will beauty mean if she towers over every man she meets like an oni,”

“She can’t control her height and you well know it, so there’s no reason to concentrate on it. She has plenty of virtues to make up for her flaws.” Mother tucked a strand of hair behind Ushijima's ear.

Ushijima took another bite of her meal. She never noticed things like this before Tendo, but now she couldn’t help but realize nobody asked her opinion. She wondered what she would have said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ushijima's uncharacteristic [ interest in social situations and fitting in](https://www.spectrumnews.org/opinion/viewpoint/women-autism-hide-complex-struggles-behind-masks/) has to do with a few factors (like not having volleyball, where she always fit in), but one is the way [ ASD often manifests in girls](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5040731/).
> 
> I am neurotypical. If I've been disrespectful or completely misrepresentative in some way, please let me know.
> 
> Also, I know the themes here aren't exactly subtle, but I hope it's not too exaggerated either. I feel characters like Grandma Ushijima (and the way Ushijima was raised) come off as stereotypical strawmen because of how ridiculous such views sound to reasonable people, but i tried to be true to reality. idk. i'm open to your take even if it's telling my 'sjw' ass to can it.


	2. AWAKENING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, whaddya think? Have any lesbian awakenings?”
> 
> "I..."
> 
> "_I kissed a girl and I liked it~_"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to everyone finishing up finals. RIP  
(also, don't believe anything i have to say about japanese honorifics. thanks)
> 
> _TW: cruel gossip, mentions and casual dismissal of CSA in section one._

“Ushi-chan,”

“Yes?”

“We were wondering--” Shishido leaned in closer to Ushijima, eyes roving over all the other girls gathered around the desks for lunch-- “why are you hanging out with Monster-kun lately?”

“Monster-kun?” Ushijima asked, voice light and airy, the way she heard other girls ask questions. She worked past the uneasy feeling of the others boxing her in on either side.

“She means the creepy volleyball player with the bad hair,” Kasama scoffed, making a circular motion with a chopstick that didn’t seem to represent anything at all.

“I do not know any male volleyball players,”

“Oh, there you go being our cute little airhead, Ushi-chan,” Miki cooed, patting Ushijima’s head. The other girls laughed and Ushijima, as always, resisted the urge to curl away from the touch. Instead, she inclined her head and played along as if she understood the joke. 

“No, the redheaded one you have lunch with,” Shishido corrected. They meant Tendo, she supposed, but...

“‘Kun’ is not an appropriate address,” Ushijima said, quiet, not sure if she wanted to be heard now that she knew everyone else understood something she didn’t in the conversation.

“No, but she’s barely a ‘she,’ don’t you think? More of an ‘it.’”

Ushijima’s smile wavered. Her left hand, the one not holding her chopsticks, came up to the opposite bicep, rubbing up and down. 

“Why did you call her that?” She asked instead of answering, hesitance dissipating in the wake of some other unpleasant emotions.

“Monster-kun? Well… she-- or, ‘it’ is kinda creepy, right? Like a monster or some kind of witch,”

“And I’ve never seen a girl so flat, so ‘kun’ seems right,” Miki added.

“Careful, Shishido, you wouldn’t want to incur the wrath of a yokai. What if it curses your descendants?” Kasama said, straight-laced.

“Well, if it is a yokai, it’s a yama-uba oni. I sit next to it in class, and it totally doesn’t shave its legs, and the red hair is kinda super obvious,” Fujisaka said

“Ewww, it’s practically a man,”

“You know what I heard?” Tahara whispered. The girls, intrigued by her secretive tone, leaned in to hear better. Tahara looked around the classroom as if for eavesdroppers and then at each of them to make sure she had their full attention before breathing out her revelation. “I heard that it’s a lesbo,”

“Really?!” Miki laughed, pushing back against the desk. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it might as well be a man. And they let it in the locker room? I feel bad for the actual girls on the team.”

“You better watch out, Ushi-chan. What if it’s stalking you or something?” Tahara asked.

Ushijima couldn’t remember ever feeling the emotions-- the uncertainty-- she felt at that moment. Her ankles wrapped around the feet of her chair and she tightened her hold on her own bicep to keep her hand from moving along it. She wanted to get up and leave, but that would be rude. She wanted to express the strange bubbling anger in her gut, but she couldn’t figure out exactly how. 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Shishido interrupted before Ushijima could make a decision. “Because you know what I heard? If we’re going to be talking about hairy yokai, then it’s a kejoro,”

“What? That’s ridiculous,”

“Ya, I mean, it’s a weirdo, but a prostitute is a little extreme. I think you’re getting too caught up in the rumor mill,”

“Plus, who would pay to sleep with it anyway?” Miki joked to the general amusement of her audience.

“No, really!” Shishido pouted. “In middle school there was this whole thing, I don’t know what happened, but it was something like that!”

“I remember. She got in trouble at home because she lied about a family member touching her, and then they found out that he paid her for it,” Kasama said. 

“Wait,” Fujisaki stopped laughing. “So... did he touch her or not?” she asked. Kasama shrugged. Fujisaka chewed on the ends of her chopsticks. “I don’t know, that sounds kinda weird. If it was a family member…” Some of the other girls shifted in their seats.

“But obviously nothing happened, so even if she’s not an actual prostitute, she’s one of those girls who lies about it for attention, which is totally offensive to real victims,” Shishido dismissed. “The point is, it’s totally strange you hang out with her, Ushi-chan.”

Overwhelmed with information and uncertain of the correct response, Ushijima fell back on the most fundamental truth of the matter.

“She has not acted inappropriately towards me,”

“Maybe, but we’re just worried about you. You’re not a great judge of character, you know. Remember when you almost followed Takezaki-kun behind the school to make out? We had to warn you that he’s a total creep,”

“I was not going to ‘make out’ with him. He asked to exchange notes,”

Miki sighed and rubbed Ushijima’s back. Her hand began to burn, and Ushijima nearly didn’t hear the rest through her attempts to focus on staying still.

“You really are our little…. eh, _big_\--” the girls giggled again-- “kitten. Your purity is very cute, and your boyfriend is going to love it. But trust us, honey, we know what’s best for you. Monster-kun is bad news.”

...:::*:::...

“Are you aware of the rumors about you?” Ushijima asked Tendo when they ate together the next day. She didn’t… she didn’t want to stay in her classroom for lunch again.

Tendo turned to her and smiled with all her teeth. One of her canines overlapped an incisor.

“You’re going to have to be more specific than that, Wako-chan! Do you mean the ones where I’m a monster or the ones where I summon demons in my basement or the ones where I’m queer or the ones where I suck boys off for money in the second-floor bathroom or the ones where my daddy left because I’m such a slut?” She took another bite of her lunch, grains of rice spilling into her blouse through the undone top buttons.

Ushijima stayed silent, not knowing how to reply. Tendo seemed indifferent to the accusations, and Ushijima didn’t have a reason to intervene further or dig up more information if Tendo remained unbothered.

Tendo put her lunch aside and flopped onto the grass, putting her elbows on the ground and resting her head in a ‘v’ she made with her hands.

“Comeon, aren’t you gonna ask me which ones are true?”

“None of them sound true,” Ushijima said.

“None at all? I don’t strike you as monstrous, Wako-chan?” Tendo smiled at her, eyes and mouth too wide to coexist on her long thin face. She kicked her legs out above her as she spoke, contorting almost far enough to tap her ankles against her protruding shoulder blades.

“No,” Ushijima answered.

Tendo stopped, staring. Her legs, eyes, and smile dropped.

“O-h,” she said, voice breaking. 

“I… apologize? I did not mean to offend you,” Ushijima said, confused at the negative response to her answer. Did Tendo wish to be perceived as monstrous?

“You’re funny. I’m not offended,” Tendo mumbled, eyes darting to Ushijima and away again.

“You’re turning red. Are you angry?”

Tendo snapped to look at Ushijima for a few seconds before laughing. Her laugh settled into a new smile, one with fewer teeth and softer edges. 

“No, I’m definitely not angry. But, uh...” She looked up at Ushijima for a few more seconds, moving her hands off her face to instead clasp her elbows against the grass. “Um, Beeeep! You’re wrong!” Her voice gained traction as she continued. “Two of them _are_ true! I’ll have you know I’m a real monster on the court... even if you don’t see it. And I do happen to love pussy.” Ushijima startled. Tendo smirked, “Doooooes that booothhher you, Wakoto-chaaaann?”

“That language is inappropriate, Tendo,”

“Hmmm, and that’s the only thing that bothers you?”

Ushijima concentrated again on her lunch.

“Who you choose or do not choose to have sexual relations with is none of my business.” Ushijima should have left it at that. “But I must admit… I do not… understand,”

“What’s there to understand? Do I need to repeat myself?”

“No. But why would you ostracize yourself for something as ultimately frivolous as uncommon sexual desire? Would it not be simpler to direct such attentions towards men?”

Tendo straightened her arms against the grass, propping up her torso. 

“Wow, you managed to imply that same-sex attraction is strange and say you think people choose their sexuality both in one go. I have a point system for offensiveness, you know, but fortunately, you’ve still scored kinda low. Try harder next time,”

“It was not my intent to offend you. Am I not correct?”

“Ooof. I want you to know I’m answering because I know you’re really asking for criticism, but wow, did you go up a point or two on the scale by asking like that.” She dropped sideways, arms flopping onto the ground as she rolled onto her back. “Would it be easier to like boys? Maybe, who knows, they kinda suck in my experience. But even if it was, it’s not a choice. I mean, are you seriously asking me why I want to fuck girls? ‘Why’ do you want to fuck boys?”

“I don’t.”

Tendo stared at her for a moment. Ushijima concentrated on the space between Tendo’s eyes instead of her sharp gaze as Ushijima tried to process what she’d just said. To be honest, she had never given in-depth thought to what she wanted in that regard. She long accepted that her life would follow an absolute path of child, student, married to a husband. And of course, obtaining a husband would require intercourse. It was something expected from her, an obligation. Something everyone did. But… was she attracted to men? She’d never considered there could exist an alternative.

“You… don’t?” Tendo blinked, voice soft and head still upside down relative to Ushijima.

“Apparently not,”

“So you’re actually asking me why I don’t pretend... like you do?”

“I am asking why you make your life difficult for something as inconsequential as relationships, particularly those that do not produce gains,”

“Produce gains? You sure have strange ideas about love, Wako-chan!”

“Love is an unreliable concept and should be minimized in marital concerns.”

The words traveled through her mouth straight from that of her mother. _ “After all,” _ she had said, _ “marrying for love is what I did, and look how that went. I was a foolish child. But you have a sensibility to yourself I never had, Wakoto. You will do better.” _

“Woah! Who’s talking about marriage?! You need to slow down! Besides, I thought you just said you’re not interested in men?”

“Irrelevant,”

“Wako-chan…”

“I will marry for the sake of my family,”

“Wait, your family? What is this, the Meiji Restoration?” Tendo rolled up with the movement of a cresting wave, starting with an arch from her navel until she sat up straight. “You’re marrying to become a baby-maker?”

Ushijima looked down. For the first time in Tendo’s sight, she allowed her smile to slip, the effort of keeping it up drained out of her with the implications of Tendo’s careless words.

“I do not appreciate that language, Tendo,”

“Right, sorry, sorry… It just doesn’t sound like you even want kids?”

“Irre--”

“Don’t say it’s irrelevant, Wako-chan! It’s actually super relevant to the topic at hand! You can’t marry and get pregnant if you don’t like boys and don’t want kids! You’ll make yourself miserable!”

“It would be impolite of me to make my feelings an--”

“--anybody else’s ‘concern’ ya ya, I know. I heard you the first time. But, ya know, they should be your concern, doncha think? And the concern of whatever partner you choose in the future? You shouldn’t do things that won’t make you happy! What’s the point if you don’t feel good?”

Ushijima did not answer. The unpleasant swooping feeling in her stomach returned. Tendo… Tendo asked too many questions. She made Ushijima wonder about improper things. She made Ushijima ask questions that it would be better not to ask because there was nothing to be done. It was the way things were supposed to be.

She finished her lunch and began to rewrap her box. 

“Hey, Wako-chan, you know, it was hard to tell before, but you actually have a pretty stern face, don’t you?... Aww, no, don’t put that smile back up. That wasn’t a criticism. I liked it!”

...:::*:::...

“So, what are you interested in, Wako-chan, if not men? Are you interested in anything?”

“I have not given it much thought.” She hadn’t given it thought at all before bringing it up with Tendo weeks ago, but since then, she found the question churning in her mind as she lay trying to sleep at night. She had not reached a definitive conclusion. Though… she had her suspicions.

“Really!?” Tendo paused and looked around the otherwise empty gym. “Hey, Wakoto...chan…”

“Yes?”

Tendo walked closer, ball under her arm until they stood near toe-to-toe. She looked at the floor, the wall, and then at Ushijima. All the while, she pressed at her jugular like she was trying to hook her finger behind her collarbone.

“Can I kiss you?”

Ushijima stared.

“You wish… to kiss me,”

“Yes,”

“I’ve never kissed anyone,”

“I figured. Me... me neither. You can say no,”

“Why do you wish to kiss me?”

“Because I like you,”

“Romantically?”

“Ya.”

Ushijima contemplated that.

“I do not currently return your feelings.”

Tendo sighed, shoulders falling and hand pressing harder against her sternum, “Ya, I figured that too,”

“And you still wish to kiss me?”

“I do. And after you can tell me if there’s a chance you ever _will_ be able to return my feelings! I mean, if you don’t already know. You don’t have to kiss me to know that, of course, but I just thought if _you_ never thought of it, it might help...”

“And if the answer is no?”

“We can keep being BFF’s forever,” she singsonged. She paused and bit her lip. “I promise,” she added, voice more grave.

“... and if the answer is yes?” Tendo perked up, rocking onto her toes and making herself briefly taller than Ushijima.

“Do you think it could be yes?”

“... it is a distinct possibility,” Ushijima admitted, watching muscles play along the stretch of Tendo’s long neck and recalling the feel of Tendo’s collar bone as she watched Tendo scratch her fingers along it.

“Then I would really really like to date you!”

“Date? You wish to date me?”

“Yup,”

“Hmmm. Alright. You may kiss me,”

“Wha?! Really?!” Both her arms straightened down with her palms parallel to the floor. The volleyball she had been carrying bounced and rolled away.

“Yes. Were you expecting a rejection?”

“I mean, a little! Usually, people who have never thought about it aren’t into either,”

“Be that as it may, I find I am not averse to the idea of kissing you, though I admit I cannot predict how I will feel about the execution,”

“Okay.” Tendo bobbed her head. “Okay. Listen, please, please pull away whenever you want to. And I promise I’ll back up right away when you tell me to,”

“I will,”

“I’m serious. Even if you decide, like, one second in that the answer is no, just push. Do whatever you need to get me away. I’ll follow your lead. I... couldn’t live with myself if I overstayed your consent for even a second,” Tendo said, sterner than Ushijima thought her capable of prior to this moment. 

“That is acceptable. I trust you, Tendo.” Tendo blinked at her and glanced away.

“Oh. I… I’m happy. That you trust me.” She looked back at Ushijima, gaze turning sharp. One hand drifted up to hover over the side of Ushijima’s face. Tendo bit her lip and frowned. “You… you aren’t just saying yes to be ‘polite’ or something, right? You… you really mean it, right? There’s no pressure. I know… I know you don’t like being touched. Nothing will change if you say no.”

To Usijima’s surprise, Tendo’s nervous voice snapped her out of an anticipatory trance. Her head lay tilted towards Tendo’s hovering hand, waiting for more. She shouldn’t have been surprised, though, that Tendo noticed her aversion to touch. Ushijima never told Tendo, but that was the sort of exceptionally empathetic person Tendo was. She likely saw Ushijima’s subtle attempts to avoid it within moments of meeting her. Ushijima’s smile softened and she let her eyes drift closed for a moment before floating up to meet Tendo’s.

“I know. I do not feel obligated to take you up on your suggestion. I find I am… curious, as you are. I do not mind if you touch me right now, and I would... like... you to kiss me,” Ushijima realized. Tendo’s bright eyes held Ushijima’s, soft. The words sat between them for less than a second before Ushijima found herself stumbling backward, hands grasped at Tendo’s hips to keep the two of them from falling. 

Long hands cradled Ushijima’s face, using her cheeks to tilt her head at the perfect angle to compliment Tendo’s eager mouth. As with everything she did, Tendo threw herself into the kiss with reckless abandon. She pressed forward, throwing her body against Ushijima’s and moving her lips like a woman parched and desperate for anything Ushijima would give. 

Her closed eyes in such close proximity to Ushijima’s face emphasized the length of her golden-red eyelashes, which tended to be difficult to see at a distance, and the pale freckles arranged across her nose. Despite the appeal of this view, Ushijima’s eyes drifted closed as well. Her hold tightened.

Ushijima felt… good. _Tendo_ felt good against her, every ounce of her flighty energy and boundless hope attempting to merge into Ushijima through the sharp plains of Tendo’s body. The rise and fall of their chests against each other left Ushijima flooding with heat from her head to her curling toes. 

It was… a lot. Overwhelming, in some ways.

… and yet… so very Tendo.

The hands on Ushijima’s cheeks gravitated from her face into her hair, tangling themselves in fistfuls of it. Ushijima’s hands twitched upwards, brushing the skin above the waistband of Tendo’s skirt.

The kiss slowed down, Tendo’s movements losing urgency until nothing remained but her lips pressed still against Ushijimas for one second… two seconds… three…

Their heavy panting tapered off into quieter and quieter breaths until silence settled around them.

“Was that… was that okay?” Tendo asked, eyes averted, hands still in Ushijima’s hair. 

“...Yes.”

Tendo’s barking laugh echoed through the open space. 

The sharp feel of Tendo’s body huffing against her own combined with the sight of the red flush under Tendo’s freckled cheeks made Ushijima’s body send signals she had no precedent to interpret.

The slight breeze through the windows drew attention to the clammy skin of Ushijima’s forehead that felt more the result of sickness than exertion. The grip on Tendo’s hips kept her hands from trembling but did not prevent a pink hue from crawling over them from under the sleeves of her uniform sweater. Her abdomen felt hollowed out, everything that had resided there tumbling down into her overheating hips. Her heart fell the furthest, sinking and sinking past her stomach and through her pelvis to rest low between her legs, still beating too fast and forcing her to press her thighs together to keep it from escaping.

She wanted… she wanted...

“So, whaddya think? Have any lesbian awakenings?”

Nothing but a dry breathy sound escaped Ushijima’s mouth when she opened it. Tendo’s mellow expression widened until she sported an animated grin. It could have been Ushijima’s imagination, but it felt like more of Tendo’s body weight shifted forward, resting against Ushijima and pressing their bodies somehow closer. The feeling between Ushijima’s legs became almost sharp.

“Ahn tun tun tun ta da tun tun, _I kissed a girl and I ~liked~ it,_” Tendo sang while swaying her head. The tune sounded familiar and the language recognizable as English, but the translation eluded Ushijima due to the strange rhythm Tendo put to the words.

“I… I don’t…” Ushijima’s voice continued to prove unwieldy, but, as usual, Tendo understood her meaning. Both of them.

‘Don’t worry about it, babe. Pop culture,” she explained, darting in and leaving a peck on the corner of Ushijima’s mouth. “So, when are you free for a date?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like i said in the beginning, i'm no expert on honorifics. and 'kun' can in fact be used on girls nowadays in certain contexts. i don't think it'd ever be used by schoolmates, but i don't know if it would necessarily carry some masculine connotation or just be a weird thing to say. but that scene was something i had in mind since i thought up this series of fics, so i kept it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	3. DESIRE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As practice wound down, Ushijima watched the girls circle each other and laugh and pat each other on the backs.
> 
> “Satori-chan may be strange, but she’s good at heart. Nobody here wants to see her get hurt, understand?”
> 
> In a way she couldn’t articulate-- even in her own mind-- Ushijima felt like these people she didn’t know in any real way had something she very much wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _TW: This chapter may be worth changing the rating to explicit, though it's not really meant to be sexy. To be clear, Ushijima is eighteen, but she’s also in high school, which may not jive with some people. You can skip the explicit section without being lost. It’s section two, starting with the words: ‘After school.’_

After kissing Tendo, Ushijima’s day passed in a strange sort of uneventfulness. Nothing else could be exciting in comparison, but the event cast an air of intrigue over the rest of the day. More than anything, Ushijima spent the time in her own head, attempting to understand this part of her she hadn’t known existed. Not only did she now inhabit a romantic relationship, which she’d never thought about obtaining for herself, but that relationship included another girl and physical feelings she could no longer mistake as anything but attraction.

Had she always felt attraction? Had she always felt it towards girls? She found herself assessing her female classmates, attempting to decide if she considered them attractive as well, or if she could imagine herself kissing them the way she had kissed Tendo... the way Tendo had kissed her.

The answer served only to shake her further. Yes… and no. Looking at some of the other girls with this intent made her realize she did find many of them attractive or certain features alluring. This was a response she could not conjure up for the boys surrounding her, a response she now realized she ignored for years because it never crossed her mind what the feeling that drew her to pay particular attention to certain girls might be. 

But…

In contrast to physical attraction, the idea of any of them kissing her the way Tendo had done repelled her. She could not and did not want to imagine it. Not to mention, she couldn’t help but think of the way many of them would react if they knew she had kissed Tendo. It caused any attraction to giveaway to an unpleasant shift in her ribs. And the more she thought about these things, the more she thought of Tendo and the kiss they had shared, and the more foreign feelings traveled up and down her body with sporadic heat.

So the day passed clouded in a constant dichotomy between reexamining herself in this new context-- leading to revelations such as why she found it easier to pay attention in, yet never seemed to retain information from, English class (Eda-sensei was known for wearing tight pencil skirts and buttoned blouses)-- and trying not to think about Tendo’s lips or weight or hips against her own.

...:::*:::...

After school, Ushijima found herself in her room, changing out of her uniform. After setting aside her top and skirt, she rolled her tights down her legs until she could peel them off her feet. Moving to set them aside as well, her thumb drifted over the material.

Ushijima blinked and looked down. To her eyes, the tight black knit gave nothing away, but her hands felt the damp patch at the seam between her legs. She stared for a moment before putting the tights aside. Okay. That had never happened to such an extent before. She recalled the feel of her heartbeat between her legs. Without conscious input, her thighs pressed together again before relaxing. Hooking the waistband of her underwear under her fingers, she shifted it down to her knees, glancing at the more visible damp spot before letting them fall the rest of the way. 

Standing in nothing but a plain nude bra, Ushijima collected the clothing and dropped it into her hamper. After a moment, she bent and grabbed the tights and underwear back. This was the sort of thing people hid, right? She shifted some of her other dirty clothes and arranged the evidence halfway down the pile. 

… But it had still happened. Ushijima’s thoughts snagged once again on Tendo and Tendo’s lips and Tendo’s smile and the weight of Tendo’s body pressed tight against hers. Driven by curiosity, Ushijima’s hand snuck between her legs. She wouldn’t be expected out of her room for hours…

She moved back to her futon and propped her torso up against the wall with knees bent, heels against the blankets. Her hand once again slipped downwards, slow and unsure.

She’d never… that was to say, though she had explored her body like this out of a desire to understand the ‘big deal’, she’d never accomplished anything. She’d managed one finger inside herself-- which felt nothing but strange-- and when attempting a second only become overwhelming and painful, she’d quit. Over the years, she’d tried again on scattered occasions but never succeeded in doing anything worth repeating. Nor did anything she’d felt explain to her why people consider sex appealing. 

Now, she wondered if it had anything to do with her lack of thought into her own sexuality. She’d never been aroused before trying before.

Deciding to capitalize on the feeling she got from thinking about Tendo’s body against her own, she flattened her hand and pressed it against herself, shifting her palm. She found herself grinding against it, attempting to push up harder onto the vague stimulation. Not unpleasant. 

Trying to chase the feeling, she moved her hand further down. She played out the usual script of searching for her opening, and ran a finger over it when she did. However, she realized she felt less pleasure that way than when she rocked into her hand from the outside. Considering this, she decided to forego her understanding of how sex worked. Her hand drifted back up, pointer and ring finger separating her lips while her index drifted over the sensitive skin in between. And at the top of her stroke, she found… something. A concentrated version of the pleasure she had felt from her palm.

Running her finger in curious circles, she isolated the small nub where the pleasure concentrated. A slight hum escaped her throat as her knees twitched apart. With renewed interest, she circled and pressed at different angles, categorizing her body’s reactions. Already, this felt better than any time she tried to penetrate herself. She allowed herself to passively enjoy the feeling for some time.

At some point, her hand slipped downwards and became slick with wetness she hadn’t noticed until that moment. Not thinking much of it, she brought her fingers back up to the spot she had found and... Her entire lower body jerked up and a stuttering gasp burst from her as her abdomen clenched. It took her a moment to realize her hand now lay trapped between her pressed together thighs. Relaxing them to the side, she rubbed at herself again. The way her wet finger slid over the soft skin once again left her breath hitching. 

Before that point, it had been experimentation, searching for this mystical idea of sexual pleasure. Now, it became a chase. Categorization and caution escaped her as every new movement left her searching for more. A sweat broke out over her skin. Her head tilted back, and her legs fell apart to the point of discomfort, knees pressed sideways against the futon. Little sounds caught in her throat as if to encourage the fingers moving now almost of their own volition. Almost… she needed…

With the abruptness of a power outage, everything changed.

All that pleasure turned to something uncomfortable. Venturing down to drag more wetness up, she found herself dried, left only with tacky residue. Still, after all that build-up, she tried to continue. She searched until she couldn’t take it anymore, the discomfort outweighing any remaining pleasure and forcing her to pull her hand away. 

Ushijima lay there, sweating, breath shallow, legs still trembling, and more unsatisfied than she could ever remember being. 

And yet… that had, by far, been the best experience she ever had with attempting masturbation. For a moment, she imagined Tendo between her still spread legs, touching and... Ushijima shook herself out of it and moved her legs together. When she caught her breath, she unhooked her bra and placed it with the rest of her dirty clothes as she went to bathe the sweat off her skin.

Not so easily abated, thoughts of her body and sex and Tendo ran uninvited through her head at the most peculiar times for... well, the rest of her life, really.

...:::*:::...

Dating in the traditional sense never qualified as an option between them. Tendo suffered more than enough bullying on the suspicion alone of being not-straight, while Ushijima never left her house without explicit permission for specific reasons. They couldn’t go on dates, be seen in public, or go out together at all. They couldn’t romance each other the way Ushijima understood it from media and literature.

This unconventional dynamic left Ushijima somewhat unmoored. If she couldn’t be a girlfriend like the ones she could study, how was she supposed to do it? She had to combine the rules of dating with the provisions of hiding it. Show physical affection, but not in public. Laugh at the things Tendo said, but would that be too obvious? Don’t hold hands like the couples on TV. Maybe hold hands in private… did they have to? Tendo was a girl, did things change? Should Ushijima focus more on acting like a boyfriend? Ushijima didn’t know. The rules were so unclear. 

Still, Ushijima couldn’t say she was unhappy. For all that she didn’t know about this sort of dating, Tendo never hesitated. She acted the same in public and not much different in private besides the occasional kisses, so Ushijima began to mimic that pattern. If she should have done something different, Tendo didn’t say anything about it.

So they didn’t hold hands or snuggle or sit on each other’s laps. Instead, they tiptoed around during lunch and between classes, finding time to be alone and discover each other in ways both mental and physical. Some days, Tendo continued to teach her volleyball. Other days, they sat on the lawn and talked about mundane things like schoolwork and Tendo’s latest favorite show or the new Shonen Jump. Still others, Tendo whispered dreams and childhood memories and even managed to coax Ushijima into completing the exchange with half-remembered tales of her father and nearly just as hazy ideas about the future.

And other times still, they took their chances in out-of-the-way corners and locked bathrooms to explore each other. Over a period of months, Ushijima’s hands journeyed over the skin of Tendo’s waist and hips down to her lean spotted thighs and even, once or twice, over the clothed bumps of Tendo’s chest.

Sitting on the countertop of a secluded bathroom while ‘making-out’ with Tendo, Ushijima remembered what the other girls had said of Tendo’s flat chest, and wondered if it was cruel or wrong to find it appealing. She pulled back to ask Tendo, who pouted, then laughed and said she didn’t mind, climbing to sit with her legs on either side of Ushijima’s thigh before unbuttoning her own shirt to expose the silky camisole bralette underneath. 

Sometimes, after class but before clubs, they even found moments to themselves in empty corners of the volleyball club room, the other team members-- to Ushijima’s initial surprise-- keeping a defensive watch. Though she and Tendo apparently weren’t allowed to do more than ‘light petting’ on orders of Captain Rhon.

When practice time could no longer be delayed, Ushijima often found herself bombarded by well-wishes and the general support of Tendo’s team.

“I’m glad you and Tendo found each other! Tendo’s been even more spirited on the court lately!” The shortest girl on the team said while patting Ushijima on the back. 

“Congratulations on your relationship with Satori-chan. It’s a relief to not hear her going on and on about your ‘unattainable stoic beauty’ anymore,” said the wide-hipped woman with the black-tipped pale hair. A girl with bandaged fingers who looked like she cut her own bangs nodded in agreement behind her.

“Thank you,” Ushijima replied, trying to figure out how that warranted congratulations. 

“Alright, alright. Hey, Yama-chan, ya tryin’ ta steal my girl? Hands off.” Tendo shooed away the girl who had been hitting Ushijima’s back. Ushijima relaxed as the touching stopped, and Tendo shot her a wink.

The club room was a bit warm for this time of year, wasn’t it?

...:::*:::...

“You told your team, about us,” Ushijima reflected to Tendo the next day at their lunch spot behind the school. “Why?” she asked. How did Tendo know it would be safe?

“Huh, oh, ya. I guess I did…” Tendo watched her for a second, head hanging sideways on her neck before going straight again. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you first. But I told them before we started dating,”

“That’s alright. But I am…--” Ushijima remembered the words of her own classmates over lunch-- “surprised. They’re very supportive. They must care for you a great deal.”

“Oh, they’re good people, is all… But it’s kinda strange to you that all the people in one group would happen to be good like that, right? You want to know why… or how I knew I could talk about it to them,”

“Yes,”

“It’s not actually a coincidence all the girls are cool.” Tendo shrugged. “It wasn’t always that way. But when I was an adorable itty bitty first year there was a second year senpai who got outed. Long story short, she was the ace and couldn’t be benched, so the team got split into people who could still mesh with her on the court and people who couldn’t. So the people who could still play well with her just sort of ended up being the regulars.” She held one finger up an authoritative posture. “That’s called natural selection, survival of the fittest. Plus one for Darwin,”

“... I don’t think evolutionary theory covers such situations.”

Tendo laughed and leaned forward to press her finger between Ushijima’s eyebrows, smoothing them out. Ushijima hadn’t even noticed she’d allowed them to crease, but she felt more and more relaxed around Tendo with each passing day. 

“I was joking, babe.” She looked around before darting forward and leaving a kiss on Ushijima’s forehead. Tendo pulled back, looked around again, and left two more kisses on Ushijima’s cheeks and then went in for one peck on the lips. 

“What are you doing?” Ushijima asked. This wasn’t making out or cuddling. She didn’t exactly know or understand what Tendo got out of it.

“Kissing my beautiful girlfriend,”

“Why?”

“Because I want to.”

Ushijima felt something light bubble up in her chest through her confusion. Tendo blinked at her and then laughed.

“Oh my god! Do that again! Smile like that again! That was so cute! My girlfriend is so cute!” Tendo went in for more kisses.

“Tendo, control yourself,” Ushijima said, though she continued to… smile, she supposed. It didn’t feel like a smile, not the way Ushijima usually made one. It took some time before the kissing and the laughing stopped. When it did, they lay shoulder to shoulder, Ushijima with her legs bent because she didn’t like the way the grass felt through her leggings.

“Do all your teammates know?” Ushijima asked. Tendo had once told her, outside the regulars, the team numbered in the forties. 

“Nuh-uh. Then it wouldn’t be a secret, just information! And not all the girls-- Hmm, well, I’m not so close to the extended team, some of the people who couldn’t work with senpai are still there. So only the regulars… and Shirabu-chan! Oh, and except Goshiki-chan. She’s still on probation until someone low key figures out if she’s cool.”

Ushijima nodded.

“Does that bother you?” Tendo asked.

“No,”

“I’m glad. My teammates like you, you know. They think you’re very cool and mysterious... In fact, I think we’re probably going to let Goshiki in on the secret soon. It’s a pain to keep her out of the locker room until we leave,”

Ushijima thought for a moment.

“I do not understand the connection between those things,” she admitted.

“I think she’s harboring a bit of a crush~,”

“On… me?” Ushijima guessed, surprised.

“Ding ding, we have a winner! But I haven’t figured out if _she_ knows it yet.” 

“... I’ve hardly spoken to her,”

“Ah, babe, some people don’t exactly need words to decide they wouldn’t mind someone as tall and gorgeous and confident looking as you stepping on them.” Ushijima blinked, completely lost at the bewildering turn the conversation had taken. “She has the hots for you, is what I mean,” Tendo added before Ushijima could ask what stepping on people had to do with absolutely anything.

“She finds me physically attractive?” Ushijima clarified.

“She’d be crazier than me not to,”

“You’re not crazy,”

“Hmmm.”

“Should I address her?” Ushijima asked. Wasn’t that the polite thing to do when someone had feelings for you?

“About the crush? Nah. Like I said, I don’t even know if she knows. Even if she does, let’s let her have her privacy. It’s kind of adorable. And I’m not the jealous type,”

“Would it not be kinder to dismiss any romantic possibilities now?”

“Aww! That’s so sweet! You’re the only one for me, too!”

Ushijima hadn’t meant to imply such a thing. She would have to marry someday, after all. However, Tendo continued before Ushijima thought to say anything in clarification.

“But, babe, to be super honest, I’m not sure how good you'd be at letting someone down softly.” Ushijima nodded in acknowledgment. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. It’s cute little puppy love. She’ll get over it on her own and you talking about it will only embarrass her…” Tendo looked up in thought before laughing.”I shouldn’t tempt myself like that, should I? Anyways. It may even be a good experience! Maybe you’ll be her Big Lesbian Awakening, TM,”

Ushijima nodded again, trusting Tendo’s social judgment even if Ushijima had lost track of what she was saying. 

“Ooo! Talking about that, did I ever tell you about my Lesbian Awakening?”

“No,”

“Okay, so there’s this actress, right? Brunhilde. She’s super-duper cute, and there was this scene where a character she played wore these stockings and--”

...:::*:::...

Over the weeks, as she began to see more and more of the team, Ushijima thought about what Tendo had said, about the others liking her and finding her ‘cool’ even though her masks often slipped around Tendo now. They didn’t see as much of her practiced smile or faked understanding. Yet… What had Tendo said? That Ushijima looked tall and beautiful and _confident_?

One day, when Ushijima didn’t have club but didn’t tell her mother, she sat at the side of the court and watched the team practice while she did her homework. During a short personal water break, the setter with the wide hips and tipped hair, Semi Eita, approached her. 

“So, you interested in volleyball, or is it just Satori-chan?” she asked. Ushijima stopped watching the spikers to look at Semi instead.

“I--” Ushjima cut herself off from the ‘I don’t understand’ she’d gotten so comfortable using around Tendo. Semi waited for a second but continued by herself when Ushijima didn’t have anything to say.

“I’m just asking because you seem to be watching the ball more than watching her,” she elaborated, sitting down next to Ushijima on the bench.

“Tendo is teaching me to play. I find it enjoyable,”

“Ah, too bad Satori-chan didn’t find you earlier, then. A height like yours would have been nice… hey, can I ask you something?” Ushijima nodded. “Don’t take this personally, but why Satori-chan, of all people?” Semi asked. “She can be... difficult... to understand, and she’s always exposing everyone’s feelings. Doesn’t that make a relationship troublesome? Plus, she does that uncomfortable eye contact thing. Creeps me out,”

“I haven’t found it a barrier.” Ushijima found most people challenging to read, after all. Tendo didn’t differ in that category. If anything, she found Tendo’s willingness to narrate her feelings and the feelings of others helpful. Sometimes it felt like Tendo led her through an alien world that Ushijima could neither find nor navigate on her own. It could be upsetting at times, but for the most part, Ushijima enjoyed seeing the world through Tendo’s eyes. And though Tendo did seem to take some strange sort of pleasure out of staring directly at people, she never so much as commented if Ushijima didn’t return the gesture. 

“You’re not going to defend her?”

“... From what?”

“My insults.”

Ushijima stayed quiet for a moment, unsure of what insults had been made. Everything Semi said had some basis in reason.

“I don’t believe you insulted her,”

“Hmm. You’re straight forward, huh? I guess I like that.” Semi stood up to go back to the court, waving at a staring Tendo as she did so. “Listen, Satori-chan may be strange, but she’s good at heart. Nobody here wants to see her get hurt. I don’t know about you, yet, but Satori-chan’s always been a good judge of character, so I wish you two the best. And if you ever need anything, let one of us know,”

“What would I need from you?” 

Semi frowned at her for a second and then relaxed with a snort.

“Oh, I get it,” she said under her breath before looking back up. “I don’t know, but keep us in mind anyway?”

“Alright.”

“And… Satori-chan is important to us, that’s my main point. Alright?”

“... Alright.”

Ushijima, confused, watched Semi jog back to the court. It made Ushijima feel... something. As practice wound down, she saw the girls circle each other and laugh and pat each other on the backs. An unenjoyable buzzing feeling materialized in Ushijima’s stomach. 

In a way she couldn’t articulate-- even in her own mind-- she felt like these people she didn’t know in any real way had something she very much desired.

But then they all headed in her direction to gather their things and leave.

“Goodbye, Ushi-chan,” Semi said with a faint smile. The other setter, with the bangs, nodded the same sentiment at her.

“See ya!” the short girl, the libero, saluted. 

“Don’t let Satori-chan get into too much trouble,” Rhon told Ushijima, hitting Tendo on the back as she passed.

“Hey!”

Ushijima realized, somehow, even if she wasn’t one of them, these people who had seen a more honest side of her liked her anyway. When she thought about what Tendo said about ‘cool and mysterious,’ she thought maybe… maybe they liked her not in spite of but because of that honesty.

“Bye, Ushijima-san!” Goshiki waved, the last one out the door. Tendo snorted from behind Ushijima.

Ushijima managed a small wave back.

“See you tomorrow, Goshiki-chan.”

Goshiki walked into the doorframe in her distraction and glared when Tendo began to laugh. Ushijima ducked her head.

Maybe, as much as she wanted them, they could want her, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol, pacing? Who dat? Never met her. To be fair, neither has Tendo, though.


	4. REFLECTION

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh! For sure someone’s told you the rumors a little more clearly than those girls, right, Wako-chan? Someone hasn’t tried to warn you away by telling you what a liar~ I am?” 
> 
> “I don’t know,”
> 
> “Ya suuuuure? Nobody’s told you the kinds of things I lie about?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience. At least 3 different versions of this chapter exist, and each of those was rewritten at least once. In the end, I actually ended up splitting this chapter into two since it got too long and i really wanted to get it out. I feel like that’s obvious from the slow pace of this one, but I hope it’s satisfactory. I will say i wish i had something more positive to share with everything going on now, but here we are.
> 
>   
_TW, trigger (section #): bullying (1,3, allusion in 5), particularly bullying focused on sex and slut-shaming (1,3), heavy implications of csa (4), lesbophobia-- the idea that being a lesbian is caused by trauma (4), mentions of hitting a child as discipline and ‘training’ (4)_
> 
> _Once again, due to the nature of this story as more of a character study, any section can be freely skipped, but feel free to message me for further details or summarization (i will see a tumblr message a lot faster than a comment, but do whichever you’re comfortable with)._

It could be easy-- too easy-- to forget that the rest of the school did not exist as the same haven the volleyball club did. But neither could that forgetfulness survive long outside its native environment. 

Ushijima heard them before she saw anything. 

“Wow, Monster-kun, how’d you get your hair to do that? Did you crawl out from under someone’s bed?”

“Out from on top of someone’s, probably. I don’t understand why boys always spend money on the ugliest things,”

“Ew. Well, is it true? Do they actually pay you? Or do you just put a curse on them so they can’t run away screaming?”

Ushijima turned the hall corner to see Tendo and three other girls standing near the wall. Tendo didn’t notice Ushijima, too concentrated on the conversation. Whenever a different girl spoke, Tendo turned towards her, eyes wide with an intense, unblinking interest. She stood wrong, poor posture leaving her arms dangling in front of her and her head looking off-center from her body.

Tendo continued to stare even when the girl on the left finished asking questions. As the girl shifted under the prolonged eye-contact, Tendo, continuing not to answer, sprouted a long, curling smile.

“What the fuck,” said the girl on the right. Ushijima recognized her as a girl from her club, Ogino. Tendo turned to her, and Ogino took a step back. Tendo tilted her head.

“Sorry about what happened today. I hope you feel better,” said a voice that appeared to be coming from Tendo. But it wasn’t Tendo’s voice. The pitch was wrong, too high, and the pace of it too slow.

“Stop that,” said the middle girl when Ogino did nothing but stare back, speechless.

“W-whatever, fucking freak,” Ogino managed, turning away but keeping one eye on Tendo. “Let’s go, I’m meeting Tazaki-kun at the front gate soon.”

The other girls turned away with her.

“See you later, Monster-kun,” one of them shot back as they left. 

They walked past Ushijima on their way out. One of the girls elbowed another while inclining her head towards Ushijima, but they didn’t stop.

As Tendo’s stare followed them, it caught Ushijima standing there. Before Ushijima could say anything, everything about Tendo changed. Her posture and head fixed themselves back into her usual casual stance, and her smile softened. When she shouted a “Hey, Wako-chan!” her voice was her own again.

“Hello, Tendo,”

“Let’s go to the clubroom! I wanna show you the new chapter of that manga I told you about before you have to go knitting,” she said as she approached. “Maybe you’ll like this one more than its adverts,”

“Alright,” Ushijima agreed, falling into step beside her. Did she read the situation wrong? Ushijima thought those girls were making fun of Tendo, but Tendo was acting like nothing had happened even though Ushijima had seen it. Additionally, there were others in the hallway, and they hadn’t said anything either. Had Ushijima somehow misunderstood?

“Who were those girls?”

“Just some classmates, don’t worry about them,”

“Were they not being cruel to you?”

“Seriously, don’t worry ’bout it.” She waved a hand. “They’re scared of me, is all.”

Ushijima stared at the path in front of them as they walked, thinking about that explanation. 

“You offered one of them condolences. What happened to her?”

“Hmmm?” Tendo turned to look at Ushijima and then laughed, “Oh, I dunno. She just looked kinda sad, doncha think?”

“No,”

“Ha, you sure are blunt, Wako-chan,”

“I apologize. I’ve been told so before. I’ll try to work harder on not being rude.” Or ‘bitchy’ as she’d been told in the past, but that wasn’t diction she had a desire to repeat.

“Hey, no, it’s cool! That wasn’t rude, and when it is, I know you don’t mean it that way. Plus, personally, I like it. I like that it’s hard to tell what you’re thinking, but at the same time, you’ll tell me if I ask. I like how honest you are, Wako-chan… And I can tell you appreciate honesty a lot, too, doncha?”

“It’s an important virtue,”

“Then there you go! It’s better to be honest and blunt than subtle and a liar. Now come on! I wanna show you the chapter before you have to go to club.”

...:::*:::...

“How old were you, when your dad left?” Tendo asked as she lay on the grass watching Ushijima eat. As always, Tendo had already finished her meager portion. Shouldn’t an athlete be eating more?

“When my parents separated or when he went to America?” Ushijima clarified between bites.

“I dunno, either… both,” Tendo amended when she saw how the first ambiguous answer bothered Ushijima. 

“I was thirteen when they divorced, fifteen when he left,”

“Do you still talk to him?”

“At least once a month,”

“Oh! Are you close?”

Ushijima paused for a moment,

“No,” she decided. Not that they were particularly distant, either. Her father always attempted genuine conversation when they spoke, and those calls often spanned over an hour despite Ushijima’s direct answers to his questions.

“Hm. Why’d he leave?”

“For work,”

“No, not Japan. I mean…” Tendo stopped, staring at Ushijima. It was a little unusual. Ushijima had never seen Tendo at a loss for words before. “Er, why’d he leave, ya know, your family?”

“Are you asking me why my parents divorced?” Ushijima asked. Tendo dropped her face into the grass.

“Ugh, it sounds bad when you say it like that, Wako-chan! I’m sorry,”

“It’s fine. I wanted clarification. I said it the way it is,”

“Hmph, I know, I know.” Tendo picked her head up, resting it on her palm. “You don’t have to answer that question,”

“I cannot answer. I’m not certain why my parents separated. Grandmother says father was ‘no good,’ but Mother has never said anything specific. She has mentioned she believes she married too young to be properly discerning,”

“Huh. You’ve never asked?”

“No,”

“Wow. So, ya miss him?”

“Not particularly,”

“Are you ever mad at him for leaving?”

That caught Ushijma off guard.

“Mad? No, why would I be?” Tendo’s shoulders bounced up to around her ears before settling down again.

“I dunno, from what I’m getting he kinda abandoned you to your mom’s family,”

“I don’t know why you’ve gotten that impression,” Ushijima said, something sour joining the lunch in her stomach. “I don’t believe I could be considered in any capacity abandoned. My family has always provided well for me,”

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to offend you,”

“I’m not offended,”

“Right… then, I just meant that from your stories, your dad sounds chill, but your mom and grandma seem sorta strict, ya know?” Tendo glanced at the chopsticks in Ushijima’s always unsteady right hand.

“Perhaps,” Ushijima conceded, unable to refute a reality she herself was beginning to see. “Regardless, I care more for them than I do for my father, and have rarely felt his absence,”

“So you weren’t close with your dad when you lived together?”

“... Not particularly.” Father never seemed to know what to do with her. She remembered again the single time they played volleyball together. For a moment, Ushijima imagined they may have connected in some way she could no longer grasp. She wondered... if things had been different, if he hadn’t always deferred to what Grandmother wanted for her...

“Were you close to your father? You never speak of him,” Ushijima observed. Ushijima knew Tendo’s father was not with the family in some form, but only because Tendo occasionally mentioned it offhand, but otherwise spoke around him in a fashion too deliberate not to be noticed.

“...I guess. There were good times. He did the classic father-daughter things, ya know? Taught me how to swim and ride a bike, gave me piggyback rides, yadda yadda,”

“... Has he passed?” Ushijima asked, cautious about the sensitivity of the question.

“Only in my heart,” Tendo said, rolling onto her back so she could press her hands to her chest in a dramatic gesture. Ushijima watched and attempted to understand. 

“You… wish he had passed?”

Tendo frowned. For a moment, she seemed to just… stop. Ushijima didn’t know how else to qualify it. Tendo was always in motion, always emoting and expressing herself even when she was quiet, but at that moment, something shifted, and the silence seemed more absolute.

“I guess I walked right into that one, huh?” By the end of the sentence, Tendo was laughing and moving again. “Wako-chan asks the hard questions!”

“You are not obligated to answer,”

“He left us, my mom and me. It was a time when I wasn’t doing too great, which is a pretty dick thing to do.” Ushijima opened her mouth, but she’d hardly gotten a syllable out before Tendo continued, speaking over her. “But he hasn’t tried to talk to me since, and it’s been, like, four years, so whatever.” She waved a hand at the clouds. “I just asked about yours because I thought maybe we could bond over daddy issues, but it’s okay that you’re all ‘well-adjusted’ and whatever. It’s not like I wanted your dad to be a jerk. I’ll just have to live with the disappointment.” She let the back of her hand rest on her forehead.

Ushijima had no clue how to respond to that, but she didn’t have the opportunity to try.

“That was a joke, by the way! I’m not actually disappointed, I’m happy for you. I’m not an actual monster, after all… I mean, most of the time,” Tendo laughed and hopped up from the grass. “You done with your food? Let’s go to the gym!”

...:::*:::...

As Ushijima followed Tendo to the court, they passed a group of girls sitting on the grass enjoying their lunch. One of the girls noticed Tendo and said something to the group, who seemed to find her words amusing.

“Hey, Monster-kun, your knees look kinda scratched up. You shouldn’t let people be so rough with you,” one of the girls snorted when they were within talking distance.

Ushijima glanced at Tendo’s knees, which were, in fact, bruised and scraped. She’d noticed that in the past as well. Tendo said she never wore kneepads during games or when she practiced. However, before Ushijima could explain, Tendo laughed.

She turned to smile at the girls, eyes half-lidded and hazy.

“Thanks so much for the concern!” she said in the wrong voice, resting her cheek on the back of clasped hands in a way that made her look younger, childish.

She never stopped walking, dropping her hands and adding a skip to her step as she turned away from the group.

The girls, no longer laughing, eyed Ushijima as she followed Tendo. One whispered something to the group, to which the rest either snorted or seemed pensive.

“So, what’s wrong with you to be hanging out with _that_? Or are you in it for something _special_?” asked the same girl who spoke the first time, smirking.

“Oh my god, shut up,” one of her friends laughed, shoving her playfully. They all turned away, ignoring Ushijima to instead continue their lunch. 

Ushijima, figuring she wasn’t meant to answer, continued to follow after Tendo. The ignoring and laughing behavior was a pattern Ushijima recognized. She realized that even if she didn’t understand it, these girls had said what they did in order to make fun of Tendo.

They turned the corner of the building and reached the doors to the gym together. Tendo rested her forehead against the metal for a few seconds.

“Maybe you should wear kneepads. For protection,” Ushijima said. Tendo turned to her, wide-eyed, and then burst out laughing, though the pitch still wasn’t exactly right. 

“Don’t say things like that, Wako-chan! I just got a funny image in my head.” Her voice, too, was still just off from being her own. 

“Of what?”

Tendo stared and then turned back to open the door.

“Nevermind, I don’t wanna say,”

“Alright. I simply meant that you should protect your skin. It’s nice, I enjoy it,”

Tendo side-eyed her as they walked into the gym.

“Darling, babe, dear, I like you a whole lot, and thanks for the compliment, it’s very sweet, but saying it like that makes me feel like you’re going to skin me and wear it as a hat,”

“I apologize, that was certainly not my intention,”

“Hmmm, I dunno, I think I would make a very chic hat. It might be kinda romantic. Maybe after I’m dead.” Ushijima scrunched up her brow and opened her mouth. Tendo laughed again. “Don’t worry, that was a joke, one you really shouldn’t repeat around sane people.” She smiled too wide.

Ushijima would admit, if asked, that she wasn’t skilled in reading others, not even people she interacted with often. That said, she got the sense that Tendo was still affected by whatever malicious thing had been communicated to her outside.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course! I’ll go get the ball cart!” Tendo said, spinning on her heel and skipping towards the storage closet.

...:::*:::...

“So, what about your mom?”

“What about my mother?” Ushijima asked.

“Are you close with her?” Tendo asked after they had been bumping the ball between them for at least ten minutes. Ushijima’s mind switched gears back to the conversation they had had while eating. This new question required more thought than the one about Ushijima’s father. Obviously, she was literally closer to her mother; they ate dinner together every day, and her mother saw her off to bed with a kiss on the forehead. She told Ushijima often enough that she loved her, but…

She didn’t know. On television, being ‘close’ to a parent seemed to include some sort of bond comparable to friendship: significant conversations about ‘crushes’ and everyday problems. Ushijima hadn’t cried in the presence of her mother since she was young… unless she included what Grandmother liked to call Ushijima’s ‘fits.’ But even then, she neither cried nor often desired to share what was bothering her, instead she wished to be left alone. Mother often complied. 

Tendo stayed silent as Ushijima thought. 

“Do I need to rephrase?” She finally asked after more than a few minutes had passed with nothing but the dull sound of the ball against their skin. 

“No, I understand, but I cannot decide what being ‘close’ entails. Are you close to yours?” 

“Hey! Cheats! I asked first!” Tendo laughed. “Ya know, this is exactly what you did with the last question, you just turned it back on me!”

“I apologize, It was not my intention to be duplicitous.” Could one ‘cheat’ at a conversation? She didn’t think so, but if it did work like that, Ushijima had collected so many tricks that she likely did it a lot. Tendo hopped to the side to receive a ball Ushijima bumped a little too far to the left. Ushijima watched the way Tendo’s big bright eyes tracked its movement. Hadn’t Ushijima told Tendo already that she trusted her? Maybe it was okay to share a few of her tricks. “I often ask someone a question they have just asked me. I find it an easy way to encourage conversation I don’t have to participate in. It seems people often ask questions regarding topics they wish to speak at length about on a personal level,” she explained. 

“Oh. I’m sorry, then, too, if you feel that way about my questions. I’m not…” Tendo caught the ball and squinted at it. “You know, actually, I guess I am sorta doing that, huh? But I hope you know it’s not just that. I wanna share, but I also wanna know these things about you,”

“That was not a judgment or an accusation, simply an observation and a personal solution,” Ushijima explained, surprised at the reception of her admission.

“Still! You’re not wrong. I guess we, humans, are just selfish like that. We’ll make anything about us if we think we can get away with it.” She laughed and bumped the ball on her forearms before sending it back at Ushijima.

“It does not bother me. And in this case, I do want more insight into what constitutes a close relationship in the sense that you intend,”

“Are you giving me permission to vent a little about my mom, then?” Tendo asked with a grin. “But you still have to tell me about yours after!”

“I am, and that is acceptable,”

“We’re not exactly close, but we’re closer than we were before-- before. She tries, I guess? Oh! Sorry!” Tendo had shrugged with her question, and it caused the ball to veer off course. Ushijima moved to compensate. “Hey, you’re getting pretty good at this!” Tendo complimented when the ball returned smoothly back to her. 

“Thank you. What does it mean that she tries?”

“Oh, she just still doesn’t know what to believe. But she takes my side, and that’s what matters. Anyway, it’s more about how I act now, so I think we’ll get along better soon, when I graduate and move out,”

“You’re leaving home after graduation?” Ushijima asked, distracted by that last sentence into letting go of her questions about the first and second.

“That’s the plan! I mean, I don’t have the money to move out or anything. I don’t really know if I’m cut out for this whole college thing, but it’ll at least give me some time and distance until I can make it on my own, right?”

“I don’t know,”

“Me neither! But that’s okay.”

Was it? Ushijima thought of her own family, of Grandmother’s talks of marriage and omiais, of Mother’s placid acceptance, of her own placid acceptance. 

She’d never had a problem with her mother or grandmother. She had strong feelings of attachment to them, and they, they have told her, to her. They raised her and gave her everything she could need and everything she had wanted. They created the framework through which she could view the world. In return, she acted as they had raised her to act and followed the rules they had taught her to understand. And Ushijima liked it that way. She liked having a strict schedule and clearly defined rules; it made things straightforward.

“Are you attempting to cut ties with your mother?”

“No… I mean, I don’t want to. And I don’t think I’ll have to. I think things can work out… just not while I have to live in her house under her rules. I can’t really say what I want to say and be who I want to be while I’m dependent on her, ya know?”

“No,”

“Hmmm. Ya sure? I think you might,”

“... I don’t know.”

Ushijima had never had a reason to stray from their rules, never had a reason to believe doing so would be worth anything, never had a reason to consider that any other options existed.

Yet Tendo would just leave her family behind because she wanted something different.

But there was more than that, wasn’t there? Tendo had her own framework and understood different rules than Ushijima did-- different rules than even their classmates did-- a perspective Ushijima found herself interested in learning; one Mother and Grandmother wouldn’t want her to learn.

“That’s okay. For me, I want things to work out. But I’ve learned my lesson. I can’t stay quiet. I’m going to do what makes me happy. Whatever makes me feel good. What’s the point otherwise?” Ushijima considered the question. Tendo looked at her and laughed. “You don’t have to answer that.” Ushijima felt like she did.

Ushijima nodded, but considering Tendo’s words, still got the sense she was missing something in Tendo’s explanation. Was it her own fault, or was Tendo really failing to mention something?

“So, your turn! Have you decided if you and your mom are close?”

“No, I haven’t. She loves me, of that I am certain. We don’t communicate grievances, but neither do I feel a need to create distance between us as you do with your mother,”

“Wow, ouch,”

“I apologize, what did I say?”

“I… The way you worded that… don’t worry about it, I can’t really explain.” Ushijima nodded. “Can I share a little ’bout what I think, though?” Tendo asked.

“About my family?”

“Yup. Though really it’s just about the impression I get from the way you say things about them,”

“Go ahead,”

“You talk about your mom and grandma like they’re the same person,”

“... They’re not,”

“No, I know! I mean… you use them kinda interchangeably? Or no, like there’s nothing about one of them that makes them different from the other? Does that make sense? I guess it’s kinda like someone would talk about their parents, so maybe I’m reading too much into it.”

Ushijima stayed quiet, thinking. Maybe… maybe she somewhat understood what Tendo meant. 

“They have the same rules,” she attempted to explain. 

“Like, the same house rules? I mean, it is the same house,”

“No, the same rules,” Ushijima tried again. 

“What? Like, for you, behaviorally?”

“No…” Somewhat. Why wasn’t Tendo understanding?

Tendo hummed, watching Ushijima instead of the ball.

“Do you mean they expect the same things? … or… You mean they have the same expectations of the world and expect you, and everyone else, to align with those expectations in the same way,”

“Yes,” Ushijima answered, relieved.

“That makes sense. I think most families are like that because people learn morals and etiquette and stuff from their parents, right?”

“Generally,”

“So, do they treat you exactly the same, your mom and your grandma?”

“No.” Ushijima thought of a switch against her shoulders, of a ruler against her knuckles, of rope too tight and scratchy around her left hand driving her into a ‘fit’. The face of her grandmother almost always looked back at her. “Their expectations are the same, but their expression of them is different,”

“That’s something, then! So do you think you’re closer to one than the other?”

“To my mother,” Ushijima realized for the first time. 

“But you still don’t know if you’re capital ‘C’ Close, do you?”

“No,”

“Well… here’s a test. What would your mom say if you told her about us?”

“What about us?”

“Ya know, that we’re dating. What would happen if you came out to her?”

Ushijima considered that. She never considered telling her family. Her mother… Her grandmother would be angry, no doubt about that. She’d see it as Ushijima being obstinate. But mother…

“She would not be happy,” Ushijima decided.

“What would she do?”

“I don’t know,”

“Guess!”

“I cannot. I don’t know. What would your mother do?” Ushijima asked before realizing what she had done.

“Hey, I thought we just said that’s cheats! I want to know about yours!”

“I apologize. But may I hear about yours first?”

“Mmmm, not much to say. She wouldn’t like it, of course, but she wouldn’t be mad. It’d be much easier to just blame it on the trauma. She might even be relieved since she’s always wanted me to show it more,” Tendo laughed.

Ushijima missed the next bump because of the shaky way Tendo hit it.

“I’m sorry,” Ushijima said as she went after the bouncing ball. While she did so, she thought about what Tendo had said. She came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that Ushijima was missing something in the conversation, but rather that Tendo wasn’t saying something. Just like she always talked around her father, she was now talking around something else. Ushijima grabbed the ball and turned back towards Tendo.

“I don’t understand,” Ushijima said, as she always did when she wanted Tendo to elaborate. Usually, Tendo did so without any more prompting or explanation necessary.

“Understand what?” She instead responded.

Ushijima studied her, but as nearly always could come to no conclusions based on Tendo’s posture or expression.

“What you are trying to tell me. Why would your mother be both unhappy and relieved? Why would she blame our relationship on ‘trauma’?”

Tendo laughed again, much too loud.

“Oh! For sure someone’s told you the rumors a little more clearly than the girls outside, right, Wako-chan?” she said like Ushijima had uncorked something and now the words were spilling out of her, like she’d been waiting to say it. Tendo swayed forward and threw her arms over Ushijima’s shoulders, leaning into her. Shivers prickled over Ushijima’s skin, and she went stiff under the sudden contact. She made an effort not to squirm away, and was so preoccupied with keeping still that she could only half process Tendo’s words. “Ya mean someone hasn’t tried to warn you away by telling you what a liar~ I am?” She ran her fingers down Ushijima’s shoulders and pulled the volleyball out of Usijima’s hand to drop it to the floor. As it rolled away, she pressed closer, wrapping her long arms around Ushijima’s sides and turning her head to hold her lips against Ushijima’s neck. 

“I don’t know,” Ushijima said, because she registered a question but didn’t know what it was. She and Tendo had cuddled before for short periods, but not like this. Tendo’s lips were too light, and her arms were too loose, not tight enough to be comforting but still touching her in too many places, even restraining her arms against her torso. Ushijima’s skin prickled, and her chest tightened, and every breath Tendo released against her skin made it burn. 

“Ya suuuuure? Nobody’s told you why they make those jokes? The kinds of things I lie about?” Tendo mumbled and left a kiss on Ushijima’s skin. Ushijima received some measure of relief from the action; it gave her direction. From their first kiss, Tendo had always been particular about giving Ushijima a way out. She insisted that Ushijima say what she felt and only do what she wanted when it came to romance and kisses, to never focus on being polite. Tendo had just kissed her, and Ushijima didn’t like it, so it must be acceptable to tell her so.

“Please release me, Tendo,” she said. Tendo laughed-- the pitch of it, like earlier, wrong to Ushijima’s ears-- but her arms unwound, and she pushed back to look Ushijima in the eyes. It afforded some relief, but Ushijima continued to feel uncomfortable all over, and she didn’t like the way Tendo was staring at her, eyes half-lidded. 

“So you have hea--” Tendo cut herself off, still smiling. “No… you haven’t, huh? Will you look at that!” Ushijima’s discomfort didn’t dissipate. She moved one arm to hold her bicep. Tendo broke eye contact to watch the movement and then took a few steps back. “Sorry ’bout that Wako-chan. I made some silly assumptions… Are you okay?”

“Yes. But I did not like that.”

“I got carried away.” Tendo tilted her head so abruptly it looked like it was about to roll off her shoulders. “But I know you’ve heard some of the rumors, haven’t you Wako-chan? You asked me if I knew about them. Which ones?”

“I have heard some,” Ushijima replied. “I cannot remember right now.” She thought about what Tendo had always told her about her own comfort, about how Tendo said she liked it when Ushijima used blunt honesty. “I’m uncomfortable, and I want to leave.”

Tendo’s head and shoulders dropped as if her muscles individually decided to stop working.

“Right. I’m sorry, Wako-chan.” She looked back up at Ushijima, smile finally fading into something less tight. “I got… confused. I shouldn’t have touched you like that without paying attention,”

“It’s fine,”

“... You’re getting out late today, right?”

“Yes,”

“And I’m early! Good! Let’s go.” Tendo skipped past Ushijima towards the doors to the gym. She didn’t turn around. Ushijima followed, rubbing her hand along her bicep while trying to keep the rest of her body as still as she could. The switch came back to mind. Ladies don’t fidget.

...:::*:::...

“Hey, there, beautiful stranger,” Tendo said, walking up to Ushijima at the curb after clubs.

“We are not strangers. We are dating, Tendo,” Ushijima said. Tendo laughed.

“I know. It’s a joke,”

“... How is it humorous?”

“Well, first, it’s just like when we first met, but this time I’m saying what I was thinking. But now it’s like, I walked up and hit on you even though you already know I think you’re hot and… You know, it’s less of a joke and more of a compliment. Foreplay, really.” Tendo winked. Ushijima’s skin stung.

“Thank you for the compliment. I do not wish to make-out right now,”

“...No, of course not.” Tendo hooked two fingers on her collarbone, scratching. “I’m sorry about earlier, Wako-chan. That was messed up. I knew I was making you uncomfortable and I still didn’t stop,”

“If you knew, why did you continue?”

“I knew, but it didn’t register right. Er, I was worried about something else, and I wasn’t paying conscious attention... What I’m trying to say is I wasn’t thinking about your feelings at all, and I should have been. I’m sorry.”

Ushijima considered that as she watched the street. She didn’t like what Tendo did at all. Still, Tendo was generally much more aware and considerate of her comfort, especially when compared with Ushijima’s other acquaintances.

“It’s fine. But please refrain from acting like that again,”

“... Will you hate me if it happens again someday?”

“No, but are you planning to do it again?”

“No! Of course not! I’ll do my best! But… I get carried away, sometimes, even if I don’t mean to be. I’m not trying to make an excuse! It doesn’t make dismissing your boundaries like that better. But I don’t want to lie and say it’ll definitely never happen again. I’ll work on it, but I just thought you should know,”

“Understood. I will let you know if it becomes a problem,”

“Thanks, Wako-chan… Are you really okay?”

“I still feel uncomfortable, but I will be fine by tomorrow,”

“Oh, then I’m really sorry for messing up your day like that,”

“It’s fine,”

“You say that a lot,” Tendo said. “Is it fine, or do you forgive me?”

“What is the distinction?”

“Hmm, if it’s fine, I didn’t actually do anything wrong or it was something out of my control or something I couldn’t have known that went wrong. It means whatever I did was okay even if the result wasn’t. But if you forgive me, I know I did something wrong, and you recognize it as wrong, but think that I’ll try to do better. It means what I did hurt you and wasn’t okay,”

Ushijima considered that as she watched the road. She knew Tendo would let her take all the time she wanted, so she did.

“I don’t find the difference particularly meaningful,” she said once she had given it enough thought. “But if it is important to you, I will say what you did was not okay,” she said, thinking in accordance to Tendo’s criteria. “You told me you knew how I felt, so the results were within your ability to regulate. It was not fine, but I do forgive you,” Ushijima decided. “Is that a satisfactory answer?”

“You bet.” Tendo gave a two-fingered salute from her forehead. “Now, I hate to abandon my princess, but I need to start walking. I told my mom I’d be home early today,”

“I apologize for the delay. Will you make it in time?”

“Now, see, _that’s_ fine. It’s not your fault! And I should.” She blew into the air and slumped. “But I hate it. The walk is such a drag!”

“Do you walk all the way home?”

“Pretty much. Sometimes I take the bus, but it seems like such a waste when I technically live pretty close. It’s just a tiny bit too far to walk, is all. Just close enough to bike,”

“Then why don’t you bike?”

“Oh, I used to. But it’s too expensive to keep fixing slashed tires. Anyway, see ya tomorrow. Have a good night, Wako-chan!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This and the next chapter will be rather dense, so please let me know if i’ve missed anything that you think should be tagged as a trigger warning._
> 
> Bullying is often a crime, remember that. For facts and resources, you can check out stopbullying.gov in the US, and other countries have their own resources. If getting help isn’t feasible, then i know you’ve heard it before, but in a few years, none of this will matter. And even right now, their opinions don’t actually matter. Live life in the way that makes you happy. Build your own personality, don’t let trauma do it for you. I know it’s easier said than done, but there’s my two cents.
> 
>   
As a side note, the fact that Ushijima’s family wanted to ‘fix’ his left-handedness sparked a lot of this fic. 
> 
> I’ll probably go into more about why this chapter needed so many rewrites in the next update. For now, stay healthy.
> 
> ... now that i'm posting this, i feel like it needs another rewrite, but i'm just gonna let it go. XD I'm sorry if it's a little slow, i promise things pick up and move forward more next chapter.


	5. TRUST

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Remember when I first told you I was a lesbian, and I said two of the rumors about me were true?” 
> 
> “Yes,”
> 
> “That was a lie. Three of them are true."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT: Major TWs in end notes.

“You’re taking longer than usual,” Ushijima noted, watching Tendo readjust her headband for the fifth time. The other girls had already gone out to the court, leaving Tendo straggling behind, and Ushijima on the clubroom bench waiting. 

“Can I tell you something?” Tendo asked as she finally closed her locker door, the metallic echo bouncing around the empty room. 

“Yes.”

Tendo twirled on her heel to face Ushijima, eyes crescent-shaped and head tilted.

“I was--” She froze, lips closing around the sentence. “Oh… that’s interesting,” she said under her breath.

“What is?”

“Sorry, talking to myself!” Tendo said, fingers tapping against her sternum. She stared at Ushijima for a few more seconds, then shrugged and hopped closer to sit on the bench beside her. Tendo sat, however, an arm’s length away, which struck Ushijima as odd.

“I’m serious, Wako-chan, ya know,” Tendo spoke again, this time not looking at Ushijima at all. “Can I tell you something kinda heavy? You can say no if ya don’t wanna be bummed out today,”

“You can tell me.”

“I was--” She stopped again and laughed at the wrong pitch. “Oh, wow. Sorry. I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to just say it,”

“Do you not want to tell me? You don’t have to,”

“No, it’s not that. I want you to know…. But I only ever had to tell one other person, and then everyone else just knew, ya know?”

“No,” Ushijima answered.

“I know ya don’t. Hmmm” She stretched her hands out in front of her, intertwining them and studying her fingers. Her sparkling red nail polish shimmered even under the dull lights of the locker room. “Well, I really love volleyball, ya know?”

“Yes,”

“Right. So for a long time, it was my sweet, sweet paradise; it still is. In middle school, the other kids thought I was weird-- they were right, of course-- but volleyball helped me feel… validated? Powerful? In control? I don’t know. Something like that. Even though my coach thought I was weird, too, she was really cool and, practiced with me when no one else wanted to.” Tendo brought her hands back in and scratched at the dip at the base of her neck. “She was, like, my best friend. I felt like I could tell her anything. So I did. I told her things I’d never told anybody. In my second year, I told her about the presents my uncle always brought me when he visited, and what I did to get them.”

The lights buzzed above them. Tendo hooked a finger behind her collarbone like she thought she could tug it out of her chest. Ushijima figured it may be her turn to speak, but she wasn’t sure, and was hesitant to do so, understanding something very wrong about the situation Tendo laid out. 

“Ten--”

“Basically, I told her that he sexually abused me,”

Ushijima’s joints locked up like the bolts on a rusting carnival ride.

“Oh,”

“Yup.” Tendo stared up at the lights. “Soooo… ya. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” Emotions ran through Ushijima too quickly to analyze beyond being negative and strong. She didn’t know what to say or how to respond at all to something so personal and horrible. She stayed quiet. “Kinda a buzzkill, I know. But it was a long time ago, so don’t even worry about it too much. I just thought you should know and make your own decisions, since a lot of others have,” Tendo shrugged, kicking a foot out. 

“They think you lied about it,” Ushijima realized, thinking of the girls in her class.

“Oh! So you have heard… And what do you think? Do _you_ believe lil’ ol’ me?” Tendo’s eyes drilled into Ushijima’s face while Ushijima averted her gaze to Tendo’s teeth. Tendo’s lips curled back from them in one of her too-wide smiles.

“Are you lying?”

“No. I would nev--” Tendo’s smile stuttered. “No, I’m not lying about this,”

“Then I believe you.” 

Tendo continued to stare, eyes narrowing and teeth bared.

“Even…” she started, “if I’ve lied to you before?”

“Have you?” Ushijima valued Tendo’s open honesty so much, her disregard for what others thought, that she’d never considered Tendo would bother with the trouble of lying.

“Onc-- no, wait. I told you one other one… sort of.” Tendo’s smile began to fracture around the edges, expression too tight to be taken as anything but purposeful anymore.

“You’ve lied to me twice?” Ushijima asked, because she didn’t know how to talk about the other thing, how to process it at all.

“Yes. No. I wasn’t trying to trick you.” Tendo looked away, gaze finding the ceiling as she scratched at her clavicle. Ushijima didn’t mind so much. It gave her all the time she wanted to look at Tendo’s face without worrying about her eyes. But it was strange. Tendo liked to look at people, or at the very least had no problem with doing so, sometimes to what Ushijima knew from others was an uncomfortable degree even for them. It was an unusual experience to have Tendo avoiding her gaze. “The truth is complicated,”

“I do not understand. You either told me something untrue or you did not,”

“I did,”

“What was it?”

“...Do you still believe me, though? About what I say happened? Even after knowing that I’m a liar?”

Ushijima thought for a moment. She wasn’t in the habit of answering questions on pure instinct, so she gave it its due consideration. But even if Tendo had lied, she was being honest now, when she instead could have failed to mention any previous falsehoods. What were Ushijima’s options? She either believed Tendo or the honor of a man she had never met.

“I have told you I trust you, Tendo. I stand by my word,” she decided. The room settled into empty silence. While she waited, Ushijima studied the bumps of Tendo’s spine protruding under the base of her neck. Following them to the collar and down the curve of Tendo’s baggy black t-shirt led Ushijima’s eyes over the tense line of Tendo’s body, ending where her heels rested on the floor, toes pointed up.

“Ya, well, you never know what someone’s limits are.” Tendo clacked her sneakers together. “My coach believed me. She reported it. Stuff happened, blah blah blah. My parents found out.” The corners of her lips curled up, and she laughed. “They told me to apologize for making up stories.”

Ushijima’s face snapped back up from where it had been occupied with Tendo’s shoes. She found Tendo facing her again. Her crescented eyes roamed aimless and cloudy, looking past Ushijima despite the lack of distance between them.

“What?” Ushijima said, the word knocked out of her, heart thumping, and chest hot. 

“Pretty messed up, huh? But to be fair, I’m a total weirdo with a dark sense of humor. The ‘weird girl,’ ya know? Used to go up to people and predict the day they’d die, or talk about things I had noticed that I had no business knowing. Things like that. I was a budding little psychopath with a big imagination. So it totally sounds like something I would make up, right?”

Ushijima didn’t know how to move or what expression to make as Tendo confided in her. The smile Ushijima cultivated for confusing social situations had already dropped, and she knew it wouldn’t be appropriate here. Still, she didn’t know what else to do as everything continued to escalate.

“I’m the kind of girl no one would believe, not even her own parents. What a great victim. I couldn’t have chosen better myself! Don’t you think, Wako-chan?” Tendo’s wide grin returned, splitting her face in half with white, occasionally crooked, teeth. 

“...What are you asking me, Tendo?”

Tendo shrugged, shoulders to her ears, head bent far enough to the side to make her neck look broken. Her smile split her face in half. Ushijima frowned. In a moment of insight, remembering the girls in the hallway, she realized Tendo did not merely put up with being called a monster, she cultivated it. Why? 

Emotions built up in Ushijima’s chest…. anger? Not at Tendo, but… strong nonetheless. Something that she needed to express but couldn’t fathom how.

“What happened to you was wrong and unfair,” Ushijima tried, mouth feeling clumsy around the words. 

“Of course it was. I know that,” Tendo laughed, high pitched and stumbling to the rhythm of a doll on strings. Ushijima felt like she was losing something. “It’s not like it lasted! I couldn’t apologize after finally managing to tell someone. And Coach didn’t just let it go. Eventually, we made a big enough fuss that he confessed to my parents. Then--” she fit her thumbs and pointer fingers into the shape of a rectangle-- “my family broke apart--” with each new syllable she swung her fingers around to touch thumb to pointer-- “into itty bitty pieces.

“I kinda won over my mom. At least, she took my side. We’ve talked about it, and now she says she believes me. She even says that it wasn’t my fault... but she doesn’t believe that, not entirely,”

“Why do you say that?”

Tendo shrugged.

“I don’t act right. I’m loud and extroverted and I’ve never been one for modesty. I know it bothers her that my reaction isn’t more what she thinks it should be. That’s why she’d secretly like to find out I’m dating a girl. It would be something she could point to and say ‘ah! There it is! There’s the trauma.’ It’s just like finding Waldo!” Tendo clapped her hands together.

“And that would be… better?”

“It would make it more real. If I acted how she expected a victim to act, it would be easier for her to believe me… easier to think that my dad was wrong and she was right to let him go.”

They sat in silence as Ushijima tried to find the words to express… anything, really. She looked over at Tendo and noticed the irritated streaks of skin starting to form around the collar of her shirt, chips of red glitter sticking to the surface. She opened her mouth.

“Tendo-san.” The door to the clubroom swung open, revealing the setter with the crooked bangs looking irritated. “I’ve been sent to tell you to stop making-out with your girlfriend and get a move on. Rhon-san is pissed… in her own way,”

“Whoopsie! Lost track of time, sorry, Shiribu-chan.” Tendo hopped up and turned to Ushijima. “You’re definitely late by now, too. Sorry, Wako-chan. Let’s continue this another time, sugar cakes.” She winked and left a kiss on the corner of Ushijima’s mouth. Shirabu rolled her eyes and retched.

Ushijima, still trying to catch up, didn’t speak as Tendo turned and skipped to the door. She turned around the frame,

“Oh, and sorry about those two lies!” She disappeared around the wall. 

Shirabu waited for Ushijima to collect herself, and nodded at her as she walked by, heading towards the main school building and trying to figure out when Tendo had lied to her.

She didn’t think about the rest. If she did, without a way to process it, she would explode.

...:::*:::...

“I never answered your question,” Tendo said to the clouds, both she and Ushijima lying on their backs at Tendo’s insistence. On the other side of the building, students sat outside, enjoying their lunch.

“You never told me what the lies were,” Ushijima affirmed. It overwhelmed her to think about what had happened to Tendo, the way she had been hurt, so all she had been able to consider all night was that Tendo had told her two notable lies, and she didn’t know what they were.

“Mhm. Remember when I first told you I was a lesbian, and I said two of the rumors about me were true?” 

“Yes,”

“That was one of the lies. Three of the rumors were true. The last one I told you about was true too.” Ushijima thought for a moment. The grass scratched against her wrists, so she sat up to alleviate it.

“I do not recall what--”

“After I told, everyone in my family took sides. Some said-- well, they didn’t say it to my face, but I could tell, I can always tell-- they thought since I always took the gifts that I did it on purpose. I mean, I was always tall for my age, it made me look older even though I’ve never been very developed. So they thought that I was trying to…” Tendo shook her head. 

Blades of fresh grass scrunched up in Ushijima’s palms, and dirt dug under her nails. Despite everything, she became distracted by the sensation. 

“Even after all the fuss, nothing went anywhere. There was exactly zero actual evidence except for what I said. Nobody talked about it for a while. Then my parents got into this big ol’ fight because my mom wouldn’t let my uncle over anymore. My Dad said my uncle wanted to--” The top of Tendo’s smile pulled a little too far off her teeth--“to _apologize_ to me. Mom said no at first, but after a while of Dad bringing it up, she said it was my choice. So they asked me instead.” A deep breath accentuated the bony bumps under Tendo’s breasts where her ribs ended. “I didn’t know the whole story, then, it was the first I heard about seeing him again. But little Satori could still tell how much Dad wanted me to say yes, to just… accept the apology and move on.” Tendo put her hands down. “But I said no. And I kept saying no. Then, one day, Dad just got up and left.” Ushijima’s mind added the discomfort of the dirt against her skin to the pull and tug that flooded her with horrible feelings she didn’t know what to do with. Tendo spoke, and Ushijima fiddled. “That’s when he said… He said he couldn’t bear to have such a… Well, he basically said that he had never been so mortified, and that he raised me to be more forgiving, to give people second chances. That he couldn’t even talk to his own family, his own brother now, because of me,”

“That’s ridiculous. You did nothing but tell the truth. The actions were not yours or in your control. A second chance is not equivalent to dismissing consequences,” Ushijima said as she scraped at the granules underneath her fingernails, scratching at the skin around her cuticles.

Tendo rolled to face her.

“I know,” she said, teeth bared and eyes glowing.

The murmur of lunchtime voices from around the building, and the natural sound of the autumn winds blurred together to create an off-putting buzzing in Ushijima’s head. Her discomfort grew, and she moved one hand to rub at her bicep before remembering herself.

“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Tendo said, turning back to the sky. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore. I won’t bring it up again, you… you can just forget all about it,” Tendo finished in a tone utterly alien to the person Ushijima knew her to be. Unsure what to do, Ushijima watched with an air of awkwardness, still cleaning the dirt out of her nails and trying to figure out what she could do or what she was supposed to say to make it better.

Tendo began to hum something that sounded like a nursery rhyme.

As Tendo’s girlfriend, as her friend, Ushijima knew, intellectually, her aim should be to comfort Tendo above all else. As Tendo’s girlfriend, Ushijima should show Tendo how much she cared that Tendo had been hurt, because, despite Ushijima’s inability to portray it, she did care.

The idea that anyone could hurt Tendo, that anyone would blame Tendo for being hurt, made Ushijima dizzy, something between her chest and stomach feeling like it was spinning faster and faster to the point of nausea. But Tendo gave Ushijima so much information so compactly--from the small sting of the mysterious second lie to the immeasurable horror of what her uncle did and how her family reacted... There was nowhere for Ushijima to start, she was wholly overwhelmed.

Ushijima sat there, switching between rubbing at her arm and picking at her nails, still lost as to what Tendo needed from her, what she could do to fix anything.

The buzzing ebbed back into Ushijima’s head as she got the last of the dirt out from her nails. 

“What happened to you was unfair, in every respect,” Ushijima said. Tendo’s humming stopped, and with it, the smile melted away again. 

“No shit, Sherlock.” Tendo flinched and sat up to face Ushijima, expression open. “Shit, wait, I’m sorry, Wako-chan. I didn’t mean it like that, it just slipped out,”

“It’s fine. You are correct. That statement was obvious. What I’m trying to say is…” She wanted to tell Tendo that she didn’t deserve what had happened, that it really had nothing to do with her as a person so much as the failure of the people around her and the place and time she found herself in. Ushijima supposed that was just as obvious, though, not worth saying either.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything.” Tendo lay back down and waved a hand in the air. “I know I threw a lot at ya, babe. I’m serious about you not having to worry about it. I didn’t tell you to upset you. I just thought you should know.” 

“I appreciate your trust. It does upset me that you’ve endured what you have.” Tendo shuffled to lay on her side, facing Ushijima. She opened her mouth, but Ushijima continued before she could speak. “I also admire your resolution in facing and handling the past. You’re very strong, Tendo.”

Tendo took a few seconds to reply.

“Thank you, Wako-chan.”

...:::*:::...

“Did you mean what you said before?” Tendo whispered. Ushijima sat on the countertop in one of the less traversed bathrooms on campus, Tendo’s hips settled between her knees. It was early morning, far earlier than their first class, and Tendo had checked the lock twice, but she still seemed stressed, limbs lacking their usual fluidity, as she stopped kissing Ushijima to instead ask her question.

“Did I mean what?” Ushijima asked.

“Two days ago, you said my dad was ridiculous for leaving because of what happened. Did you mean it?”

“Yes. His actions had no basis in reason.”

Tendo hummed and kissed her again, hands firm against Ushijima’s waist, the way Ushijima liked it best.

After another few minutes, she pulled back and spoke again.

“... Can I tell you my worst secret?” she whispered.

“Of course,” Ushijima said without hesitation. At the same time, she felt a moment of dread at the idea of there being _more_. Another thing that hurt Tendo that Ushijma wasn’t adept enough to comfort her about.

Tendo shifted so the elbows of her crossed arms rested on Ushijima’s chest.

“They’re not wrong about what they say about me,” Tendo said, shrugging. “Truth is, what my uncle did, in the beginning... I liked it. I liked that he brought me so many cool gifts and paid me so much attention… I didn’t know what it was at first, of course. And it was-- I mean I don’t want to say fine, but it didn’t hurt or anything. By the time I realized what it was I felt it had been happening for so long-- Well, first I felt like an idiot for not knowing, ya know?” 

“You are not unintelligent, Tendo.” Regardless even of academics, Tendo understood people on a level beyond, Ushijima thought, even basic social expectations. She had all the sensitivity that Ushijima never had. If the positions were reversed right now, Tendo would know exactly what to say. 

“Thanks, Wakato. The thing is, after that, even after I knew…” Tendo rested her head on Ushijima’s shoulder. “I never said no,” she breathed, warm against Ushijima’s neck. “Not once… And I never meant to report him,” she admitted all in one breath, her tense posture going slack.

The walls creaked. Someone’s footsteps passed outside the bathroom door and water leaked out one of the faucets. Tendo inhaled.

“I told my coach because she was my friend. I didn’t know she was a mandatory reporter. Looking back on it, of course she would have done that even if she wasn’t legally required to, but I didn’t realize that. I thought she would keep it secret if I asked.” She laughed like breaking glass, high pitched enough to send an unpleasant shiver down Ushijima’s spine. Tendo put her hands on Ushijima’s shoulders and pushed back to look Ushijima in the eyes. “What do you think ‘bout that, Wakoto? Aren’t I such a whore?” She singsonged. 

Ushijima recoiled, caught off guard by the vitriolic wording and painful laughter. It echoed against the cold white tiles. Ushijima found herself, for the first time, unsettled by Tendo. She did not enjoy the feeling.

“Please do not call yourself that,”

“But didn’t you hear me? I liked it. Don’t you think they’re kinda right when they say I wanted it?” her voice sped up until words began to spill into each other. “I never said no. I did what he asked. I let him touch me for gifts. I’m basically a prostitute. That’s what everyone says, right? Don’t you think I’m gross?”

“No.”

Tendo blinked. Her smile somehow spread wider, sharper as she searched Ushijima’s face.

“What?”

“While I find the general situation to be repulsive, you were a child. From my understanding, children generally enjoy attention, physical contact, and gifts, and you had no possible context for the appropriateness or the future ramifications of what he did. You had every reason to find it an acceptable experience at the moment. I fail to see how that reflects on you in any capacity. You behaved like a normal child,”

“You think that response was _normal_? You think _I’m_ normal? Are you even looking at me? Everyone else can see it. That’s why they don’t believe me, because there’s clearly something wrong with me. They’ve warned you, right? Why don’t you listen to them?” 

“Because they do not know you,”

“They know enough. Listen to your common sense. They can’t all be wrong, right?”

“They do not know the full story. Their conclusions are invalid,”

“You’re not listening!” Her smile began to twitch downward. “I’m telling you they’re right! That I’m the cliched sob story who got abused by her uncle, except I got off on it! And then, even though I consented, I wouldn’t even consider forgiveness. What aren’t you getting?!” Ushijima frowned, confused and alarmed by the shift in Tendo’s attitude and her strange interpretation of the events she had described. She did her best to answer the question even as Tendo’s proximity started to become too much.

“The idea that being a child and therefore not understanding the situation makes you sexually deviant, that something that happened outside your control should have any bearing on my perception of you, and that you are obligated to accept an apology simply because it was hypothetically offered.”

Tendo stared.

“You… you’re not just saying that, like my mom does. You... really don’t think it was my fault, do you?”

“No,”

“I can always tell, you know, when people are lying about it. I can always tell what they’re really thinking, what they really think about me.” Tendo laughed one last time before her smile dropped completely. She let go of Ushijima so she could bring her palms up to cover her eyes.

Ushijima had never considered the negative ramifications of being able to empathize with and understand people at Tendo’s level, of never being able to believe even a white lie. Perhaps, in its own way, it could be socially difficult as well. She thought about what Tendo often said, that she liked that she couldn’t always tell what Ushijima thought.

Tendo’s shoulders hitched up to her ears as she spoke from under her hands

“Say it again,”

“What?”

“Tell me it wasn’t my fault,”

“It was not your fault,”

“... say it again,”

Ushijima repeated herself. She continued to repeat herself on request as Tendo crawled onto the counter beside Ushijima and buried her face in Ushijima’s shoulder.

They sat like that until after the bell rang, silent except for Ushijima’s voice, and the occasional broken gasp for air.

...:::*:::...

“Remember how I told you there were two lies?”

“Yes,”

“Did you ever figure out what the other lie was?”

“No,”

“Before we kissed for the first time, I told you I’d never kissed anyone else. That was a lie. But… I wanted it to be true. I felt like it was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _TW (section): The whole chapter is a tw for non-explicit discussion of childhood sexual abuse by a non-guardian family member, including dismissal of the original accusation and victim-blaming by parents. The victim is asked to forgive her abuser and is admonished for not doing so (2 & 3). Discussion of internalized victim-blaming and the fact that the crime was reported without the minor’s consent (3). The victim was incentivized but not coerced and was never physically injured, leading to feelings of 'well, it wasn't that bad' (3). Use of derogatory and sexualizing language by the victim towards her own actions (3)._
> 
> _Please let me know if any other trigger warnings apply._
> 
> I had a lot to say here, but I'm just gonna sum it down to I have a lot of hangups about this chapter for obvious reasons. I'm letting them go and posting now or it'll never happen. I hope I've been respectful. Criticism is more than welcome.
> 
> Also, [RAINN](https://www.rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline) and a more general list of[ support networks](https://greatist.com/live/sexual-assault-survivor-resources) for survivors of sexual abuse.
> 
> And, if you're interested, here is some information about [autism and the types of empathy](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6794557/) and the way[ empathy works in relation to in-groups and out-groups](https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/aut.2018.29000.cjn) that i found in my research and wanted to share. The second one especially.

**Author's Note:**

> <s>regular updates once a month</s> I'll be going on a small hiatus as I work on other things. But I'll be back soon.
> 
> lately i've felt the need to start posting about my story ideas, little snapshots of stories i'll probably never use, and general progress (next chapter, future stories, etc) to keep myself grounded. So if you're interested in that sort of information, feel free to check out my [tumblr](https://phantomangofics.tumblr.com). Notes for specific works are tagged with its name.
> 
> Criticism welcome.


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